


Artifice

by subtleassiduities



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: A lot of cryng, Action, But no one new dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Crying, Dead People, Drowning, Gen, Horror, Illusions, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Healing, We're addressing several elephants in the room, everyone cries, just barely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29737584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtleassiduities/pseuds/subtleassiduities
Summary: When a retrieval mission traps Nozel with a dangerous and powerful artifact, Nebra and Solid struggle to find help before time runs out for him. But their attempts are thwarted by a widespread, rapidly progressing phenomenon: Everybody in the Clover Kingdom is forgetting about Nozel Silva. Their only choice is to depend on one another-- and Noelle, the only other person who can hold onto a memory of their dear brother. Their rescue mission forces them to face their own memories, twisted against them in ways they may not be able to overcome.TL;DR: You ever see Pokemon 3: The Movie? It's kind of like that, but better.
Relationships: Nebra Silva & Noelle Silva & Nozel Silva & Solid Silva
Comments: 54
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy to bring you this story! It's been gestating at the back of my mind for months now while I work on lighter, sillier stories. But now, it's finished, and ripe for your viewing pleasure!
> 
> If you came for comedy, this isn't that kind of story. It's got some light banter toward the middle and some flat out jokes toward the end, but that banter is nestled among some pretty intense moments that'll make it kind of jarring. Overall, this story is darker than my usual works-- although that isn't saying much. I experimented with heavier themes, but I am weenie, so I didn't get very deep into them.
> 
> Another thing I'll mention is I let parts of this story be dumb. I mean, your first hint was that I compared it to Pokemon. If you've ever seen a Pokemon movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. I consider myself a little better at writing than the Pokemon movie team (at least in the early days), but at the end of the day this story was a series of "If that happened, would it be fucked up or what?" ideas bundled up with a healthy dose of Wish Fulfillment. Parts of the plot are thin because I thought they'd be cool and I wasn't trying to write the next Pulitzer Prize winner. But if you like the idea that familial love can rise out of the ashes and become a super power, you're in the right place.

When the Silver Eagles got the report of an ancient castle appearing in the forbidden realm, Nozel was intrigued. The location itself was interesting: close to where the original Royal City was believed to have been hundreds of years ago, although its exact location had been lost to time. That could mean that they would be exploring the place of his ancestors. Of course, it could just as likely be an old fortress castle, left to time and the elements, with nothing inside it. But the Department of Magic’s assignment team was being cautious. They chose the Silver Eagles for the recovery mission due to the castle’s location making it high risk. So Nozel put together a strong team, and led the expedition himself. 

When he and his squad arrived before the dungeon, two things were abruptly clear. The first was that this building did not only  _ contain _ powerful magic; it  _ was _ powerfully magical. The very mana radiating from its walls was suffocating. While their arrival triggered no active magic phenomena, it didn’t need to; ancient power pressed upon them, deep and indomitable even in this passive state. The second thing about the structure was that it was extremely dilapidated: bricks crumbling to dust; plants rooted deep in the decaying walls, pushing aside brick and mortar; windows sprinkled with glass long ago reduced to dust, the wooden panes in which they once sat rotted to nothing. Walls slumped and rose, long ago heaved to unsteady angles. There were no right corners left anywhere on the three-story exterior. Much of the stone roof had collapsed into itself. What was not stone had long ago rotted away. There were no doubts in anyone’s minds that the lightest misplaced weight could bring this entire structure down on their heads. 

But the Silver Eagles were nothing if they were not confident, so powerful mana and crumbling walls would not slow them down. Once they had gained all the possible information they could from the outside of the building, including a detailed interior map via their stone mage, they had a route plotted. It appeared that something within the dying castle was extremely powerful, and the path to it was direct, straight through the main room. There did not appear to be anything else of note within. They could stick close together, keep up their guard, get the artifact, and get out. Then, they would perform a controlled collapse. A simple mission. Nozel supposed they’d be done within an hour.

With their initial assessment complete, the Silver Eagles gathered outside the castle. Solid was practically vibrating with excitement on Nozel’s left side; dungeon crawls were his younger brother’s favorite kind of mission. Somehow his royal status and years in the magic knights had not robbed him of his childlike wonder for a treasure hunt. Nebra, easily amused by his excitement, wore a curious smile on Nozel’s other side. The four other members of his squad were no less eager, although they hid it better. He kept his tone careful and controlled, forcing professionalism upon them. “Our mission is to get the magic artifact within the building and leave. No one is to divert from the path. If there are other treasures within this building, we will recover them after it is brought down. I do not intend to trigger an uncontrolled collapse. Understood?”

His magic knights saluted. Nozel straightened and took the first careful step into the castle. His brother and sister fell in line behind him, and the other knights followed. 

Even in its rotting state, there was no denying that this castle had once been beautiful. The large, open front room, now devoid of a roof, gave the impression that the heavens were opening up for them. Holes in the walls marked where several large, elegant doors must have led to the separate wings. A stone walkway stubbornly clung to the crumbling walls that made up the front room-- both a place of defense and casual observation. It was open, welcoming, and grand.

When the knights had filed inside, Nozel looked to Nebra. She nodded, and her grimoire flipped open. Eyes on the page, she lifted her hands. Magic gathered in her palms.

_ Mist Magic: Spider’s Unmasking Threads. _

The room filled with a thin, light mist. Usually in a dungeon, this spell would form thick clouds along the floors and walls, pointing out exactly where boobytraps were hidden. But it didn’t do that here; instead, it hovered lazily in the magic-heavy air, except in one spot, where it gathered so thickly that it was hard to tell what laid beyond it. Nozel watched the mist spread with narrow eyes, and then he continued down their plotted path. His knights, fascinated and assuaged, followed confidently behind.

The mist marked the only remaining door in the room as a place of densest magic: a thick, metal door, darkened with age but not weakened. As they approached, it was clear that it was not the door that was attracting the mist; it was whatever was behind it. Nozel surrounded the door frame with mercury, allowing his magic to bear the weight of the unsteady stone, before he formed a key in the keyhole and pulled it open. The building heaved, and the door scraped defiantly against the uneven ground, but to Nozel’s relief, the building didn’t lean into his mercury. Slowly he withdrew it, and when the wall remained still, he and his knights let out a breath. He peered into the room.

Despite everything else about the castle having aged to dust, this room was so well-preserved that it hadn’t yet decayed past the stage of rot. An old wooden desk, taking up a majority of the room, stood on weak legs. Its surface bowed like the back of an old workhorse, and the bottoms of its drawers had rotted out, spilling their contents onto the floor. The metal quills of pens were all that remained. The smell of rotting glue flavored the air, wafting from the book shelf behind the desk. The books had ceased to be anything but decaying mush decades ago; those with leather covers were all that distinguished one book from another. A couple shelves had already collapsed, and the rest would not last much longer. A rug underfoot served no purpose but to stink up the room further. Its once bold colors were reduced to a putrid brown. There were no windows, but several empty candle holders still hung on the walls. One adorned the corner of the desk.

In the seconds that Nozel had before Nebra’s mist flooded the room, he took in, in their entirety, the two other things that there were left to see. The first sat in the middle of the desk, its base pressed into the soft, rotting wood. Sitting atop the broad brass base was a crystal ball. It looked untouched by time, and it was not hard to see that that was due to its powerful magic aura. Nozel thought that he saw the clear crystal orb’s insides shifting before Nebra’s mist surrounded it, but it was hard to tell for sure. The second thing to note in the room was the crumbled, disintegrating form of a skeleton, its head having long ago fallen from its spine. Seated in the chair pulled into the desk, it was nearly reduced to dust. Its decomposition, however, had slowed near its hands, which laid on either side of the crystal ball, blackened and leathered.

Nozel took advantage of the narrow doorway and shifted his stance to keep his siblings from crossing the threshold of the room. “Nebra, dispel.”

Tilting her head in a transparent attempt to catch a glimpse of the room, she did as she was told. The mist dissipated, and the skeleton and the crystal ball appeared through the fog once again.

Solid, peering over his brother’s shoulder, let out a low whistle. “Cliche.”

Nozel rolled his eyes. He lifted his hand, motioning the others back. It was clear that whatever this thing was, it would have a powerful hold on whoever got too close. He did not intend to take any chances. Luckily, they had come prepared. “Solid, the chest.”

Solid pulled from his satchel a bulky wooden box. The black velvet interior radiated powerful magic; the lock was made of the strongest metal that the Clover Kingdom could craft. This device was designed to hold magic artifacts. It wasn’t like this was the first time that magic knights had discovered an item that could have a sway on a mage, and their caution was a lesson written in blood. Solid set it down by the door of the room and backed up. The other magic knights shadowed his movement.

Mercury pooled around Nozel’s feet and snaked into the room. He could feel the magic power radiating off of this object, rattling the molecules of his mercury. He was glad for his caution. But it struck him, as his magic surrounded the crystal ball with care, that it wasn’t buffeting his magic away; it was drawing it in. Softly, like a siren’s song.

He didn’t let his urgency break his concentration. The object came away from the rotting desk with a moist pop, and he drew it out of the room with care. It seemed to  _ love _ his magic; his mercury followed the shifting and swirling within the sphere like it was dancing with it, and Nozel found it difficult to still his own magic. Through the extension of his magic, the object felt like a warm embrace; a familiar friend. He’d never encountered anything that felt this way.

It wasn’t until the artifact passed through the threshold of the room that he realized the walls were crumbling.

Nebra’s cry made his head shoot up. The Silver Eagles were backpedaling, hovering near the center of the room where the crumbling walls couldn’t yet reach them. Magic shields came to life as the east wall of the castle collapsed, and the north followed like a row of dominoes. Stones and brick ricocheted into the air, and the castle roared a mighty death rattle. Nebra cupped her hands around her mouth and made her voice rise above the cacophony. “Nozel! Come on!”

Stone fell around the metal doorway. Nozel leapt out of the way and darted for the wooden chest, the crystal ball still cocooned in his mercury by his shoulder. “I’m right behind you. Get out!”

Trusting their captain’s judgement, the magic knights darted for the exit. Thick dust blotted out the light as the collapsing walls disintegrated to dust. A tower connected to the east wall fell across the main room, cutting off Nozel from the knights. The ground shook as the stones scattered across the floor, and the entrance started to crumble. Those of the knights with strong defensive spells hung back, shielding their comrades from the falling debris as everyone stumbled out of the doorway. They ran until they were free of the thick dust, and when the air cleared they collected, wiping muddy tears from their faces and coughing until the grit didn’t constrict their lungs.

Through the dust, the castle kept falling. Each tower fell into the main room, throwing up more dirt until finally the entire structure was obscured in stony smog. The earth rumbled like the quaking was coming from beneath, and Nebra, along with several other knights were thrown to their knees. Solid stared, thick, clear tears keeping his vision unmuddled, as the obscured castle finally finished its descent to the ground.

The castle grew still all at once. There was no rumble of pebbles settling. No crackle or thumping as stones lost their purchase. Just sudden, damning, silence.

Solid spoke first, his voice cracking from the dust caking his throat. “Where is he?”

Nebra lifted her head, blinking dirty tears off her long lashes. “Nozel?” When no one answered her, she climbed to her feet. Her voice grew to a discordant boom. “Nozel!?”

Behind them, the Silver Eagles stared in helpless confusion.

She grit her teeth and pressed her curled fingers to her lip, voice cutting as she whirled on them. “Where is he!?”

Still, the four faces staring back at her offered nothing.

“Nozel!” Solid’s scream thundered through the trees, louder, bolder, and more afraid than Nebra’s could ever be. “ _ Nozel!” _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Nozel trapped under a castle's worth of rubble, Nebra and Solid scramble to find help for him-- a task made difficult by how quickly he's fading from people's memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I want to see how people are forgetting Nozel!" you cry.
> 
> The finger of the monkey's paw curls. Enjoy your wish.
> 
> This chapter contains the scene that made me want to write this story, but ironically it's probably fallen to #3 of my favorite. Hopefully it hits like I want it to!

“The smog won’t clear.”

Nebra’s eyes narrowed to venomous slits. She pulled her hand away from her mouth, drew in a breath of sooty air, and said, “Then get someone to clear it.”

“We’re trying, Lady Nebra. But our magic can’t affect it.”

She let her gaze reduce the magic knight to a quivering heap. With a hissed sigh she turned away and eyed the cloud of dust. Inside, a dozen magic knights were scouring the ruins for Nozel. After calling for reinforcements they’d had a team of fifteen, but three had been put out of commission by the dust cloud within minutes. The rest were working in shifts, weaving in and out of the cloud to suck in breaths of fresh air before delving inside.

She brought her communication device to her lips and pressed the button. “Solid, how is the search going?”

After a pause, her brother’s voice came through, staticky and winded. “Bad. No one can see anything in here.”

“I see… Come out.”

“No, I’m working.”

“You need some fresh air. Come out now.”

Solid’s muffled curses were his only answer, but within minutes, he stumbled out of the cloud. His white clothes were dirtied to an ugly brown, and his eyes were bloodshot. Grime was caked to his hair, and Nebra could hear him wheezing from a distance. Nonetheless, he straightened and came to her side, his face twisted into a cantankerous scowl. 

With him standing beside her, she turned back to the magic knight. “If you aren’t up to the task, we’ll need to call more knights. There is no excuse for this lack of resilience. Together, you should be above this obstacle.”

The knight bowed his head, taking the words like lashes to the back. He licked his lips and wrung his hands. Nebra waited, perfectly able to pick up the signs of an inferior working up the courage to tell her something. “My lady,” the young man began, voice quivering, “we can’t remember what we’re looking for.”

Nebra’s eyes widened. Ice chips formed in her veins, making her stiff and cold. “What?”

“We know that we’re on a recovery mission,” he chattered, eyes on his feet, “but we can’t remember what we’re looking for. We know we were told. We know we  _ should _ know. But we don’t…”

“What do you mean you don’t know what you’re looking for!?” Solid’s voice rose to a discordant boom, his mana flaring violently with it. “What is wrong with you? Have you forgotten your own goddamn captain?”

The magic knight stepped back, his eyes leaping to meet the royals’. And with that look, Nebra felt the ice reach her heart. The answer was written all over his dusty face. He had. He had forgotten his own captain.

Nebra brought her communication device to her mouth again. Eyes never leaving the magic knight, she spoke into it. Her voice echoed from the device at Solid’s hip, but he was not the only one who had one. “Knights, relay to me why you are here.”

A senior magic knight, one of two with a device, answered promptly. “We are on a recovery mission, Lady Nebra.”

Solid stiffened like he’d been stabbed in the back.

“Wrong,” she said lowly. “You are here looking for someone we assume to be alive. Whom?”

Background noise echoed through the device, but the two active lines didn’t voice a response.

Nebra’s hand balled into a fist. “Who are you looking for?”

More muffled silence. Finally, one of the knights answered her. “We don’t know, my lady. No one recalls you giving us a name.”

Solid’s ice blue eyes bore into Nebra’s face, electric with a growing panic. She didn’t meet his gaze, staring instead over the head of the magic knight still standing before her. “Nozel Silva. Do you know that name?”

The line disconnected. Nebra counted the moments with her nails against her forearm, fighting with all her might to keep time from slowing to a crawl. She waited fifteen seconds. Then she pressed the button again. “I asked you a question!”

“No, ma’am,” came the feeble response.

Solid’s jaw clenched so hard that a vein bulged in his temple. Nebra’s nails, pressed to her arm, threatened to break the skin. She swallowed hard and spoke into the speaker. “I want everyone out of the debris immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Shoving the device back in its holster, she addressed the magic knight before her. “Make sure that everyone is accounted for. I want an extensive, detailed report of everything that the knights could learn about the ruins. No one is to enter the ruins until further notice, and no one is to leave this area.”

The knight nodded, saluted, and hurried off.

Nebra turned to Solid. “I need you to work with the knights on this report. Collect your details and start writing it. I am going to get more help.”

Solid gawked. “You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

“I just told you, we need more help.” Her grimoire opened, and mist gathered around her, solidifying into a cloud that lifted her off the ground.

“You’re going yourself?” He shaded his eyes from the setting sun. “Why don’t you just call for someone?”

“Because more magic knights isn’t going to fix this. I’m going all the way to the top.”

* * *

Nebra had never requested an audience with the wizard king before, so she was surprised that she could gain it so easily. Upon arriving at headquarters and stating her business, she was informed that her timing was good, because Wizard King Julius was in. She waited only a few minutes before she was escorted into his office.

She’d been in the office of the wizard king once or twice before, but its appearance never ceased to catch her off guard. It was large and spacious, but instead of being meticulously maintained and decorated with awards, like she’d always pictured, it was cluttered, a tad too warm, and sparsely decorated with things like children’s toys and glass figurines. The large desk set in front of the window was stacked with paperwork and manilla folders, and the dim lamps and ample afternoon light painted the office in a cozy orange. The smell of hot chocolate and cold coffee mingled subtly in the air.

Julius Novachrono rose from behind the mountain of paperwork to greet her, spreading his hands with a warm smile. “Good evening, Nebra. To what do I owe the visit?”

“Wizard King Julius,” she greeted, saluting. “I come here on an urgent matter. The Silver Eagles’ dungeon mission in the east of the Forsaken Realm has resulted in a dungeon collapse. Nozel is trapped under the rubble, along with an extremely powerful magical artifact. I called for reinforcements, but it appears that the strong magic inside the castle is affecting the magic knights’ memories, and is obscuring the ruins in dust. We need more advanced assistance.”

The man’s smile faded to a serious deadpan. “I see. How many knights are currently at the sight?”

“Twelve active, fifteen in total. Dust from the ruins put three out of commission.”

“Was anyone else injured?”

“No, sir.”

“And what sorts of effects did you notice among the knights?”

“A thick cloud of dust has surrounded the ruins, which the knights are finding impossible to work in or clear. Every one of them had forgotten why they were there within four hours.”

“Interesting,” Julius mused, rubbing his chin. “Very interesting! We’ll need someone specializing in memory or mind magic to counter these effects, or at least help us understand them. It sounds like we'll need some very strong mages to work through these physical obstacles as well. I will get a team out there as quickly as possible, as well as some medical mages. I have some names in mind...” He swiped up a blank sheet of paper and a pen. “Please give me the coordinates.”

She recited them for him, and he swiftly wrote them down. She answered some other questions for him about the knights at the site, as well as what she thought might be of use at the site. Then, he started organising. Nebra watched in tense silence as he made calls, gathering up a team of knights from several different squads that were, no doubt, perfectly coordinated for the job. Within fifteen minutes, reinforcements were on their way. Nebra wanted to feel some relief, but the promise of more specialized help hadn’t allowed her to unclench her muscles one bit.

“If this situation isn’t resolved by midnight, I’ll make a visit to the site myself,” Julius promised. “A magic item that obscures memories and surroundings… That’s very unique! Were you able to see it before the collapse of the dungeon?” He looked to her with shining eyes.

Nebra fidgeted. It was only through a lifetime of etiquette training that she was able to keep the bite out of her voice. “No, sir.”

“What a shame. Well, no worries. We’ll be sure to get it from the ruins. Nothing that causes anomalies like this can be left in the open. And then I’ll be able to study it properly-”

“Sir?”

Julius looked up, his smile petering out.

“Who did I tell you was trapped in the ruins?”

Julius frowned. His purple eyes shifted away, and in the setting sun, a dark shadow fell over his furrowed brow. “Did you tell me that someone was trapped in the ruins?”

“Yes.” Her voice, despite her best efforts, came out strained. “Nozel is trapped in the ruins with the magic artifact. I told you that.”

The bewildered look on his face made Nebra’s heart sink into her feet. Julius looked away again, eyes narrowed as he struggled to pull the memory from his mind.

Neba swallowed hard. “Do you know who Nozel is?”

“The name is… familiar, for sure,” he said slowly, “but I can’t put a face to it.”

“Who is the captain of the Silver Eagles?”

He opened his mouth, an answer on the tip of his tongue. But just as soon as he thought he had it, it was gone. His mouth closed, lips forming a thin line. “It appears that this magic item affects more than its immediate surroundings.”

“Call a memory mage here, sir.”

* * *

Blue light erupted from the space above Solid’s head. The light grew, stretching toward the high ceiling and pausing at short intervals, creating three short planes. Above them, it collected into a smooth, glowing sphere of magic. Solid sat back and closed his eyes.

An image of the run down castle materialized in the glowing sphere. The memory was crystal clear, down to the sound of footsteps echoing through the old building, and the particles of dust reflecting off of the high noon sun. Nebra, Marx, and Julius watched the screen as, through Solid’s eyes, they were taken through the large front room of the castle. Ahead of Solid, back to them, was the tall, lean figure of Nozel Silva.

Nebra held her breath as her eldest brother pulled open the door of the metal room. She had not seen what was inside, but Solid, always a step too close, leaned over Nozel’s shoulder. His vision put the magic artifact at the center of the memory: a large crystal ball whose interior was in constant motion, sitting between the mummified hands of a decomposing skeleton.

Nozel turned, his eyes landing on the person to Solid’s right: Nebra. With his command, she dispelled her mist, and his mercury reached into the room. He plucked the crystal ball from the desk, and then slowly drew it out, head tilted childishly to the side. That was where he stood, gazing at the artifact, as the building started to crumble.

Nebra knew that Solid was always looking up to Nozel-- both literally and figuratively -- but she vastly underestimated just how closely Solid’s gaze stuck to their elder brother. He watched Nozel until he was long, long out of sight. He saw each pillar crash around him, but he also saw how they didn’t land on his head. He saw the metal door fall out of its frame, slamming to the floor, but he saw that it fell away from Nozel. He saw how Nozel, in the precious seconds he had between when Nebra grabbed his attention and the castle came down, chose not to leap to safety.

Marx paused the memory when all that was left to see was dust. The room was quiet as the Silvas took in the haunted looks on the faces of their superiors: deep, searching grimaces as they probed the holes in their memories that had now been laid bare.

Nebra swallowed hard. “Do you remember anything about him?”

“No,” Julius said gravely.

“I’ve never seen that man before,” Marx murmured. “But my magic is absolute. He must exist.”

“And he’s in possession of a magic artifact,” Julius mused. “Nebra, Solid, if this man is as capable as you say… Well, you’re confident that he’s still alive?”

“Yes,” the siblings said in unison.

“Then we will have to stay on our efforts to rescue him. That being said, I have a feeling that it’s going to be a difficult task. The image I just saw of him in my mind’s eye is already fading…” The wizard king rubbed his head, brow furrowed.

“The original group of knights wrote up a report, and  _ my _ memories aren’t tampered,” Solid said. “We don’t need you to remember him to run a search party.”

“That’s true,” Julius admitted. “My concern is researching this artifact. If we can understand it, it’ll help in the search. We have no idea what the full extent of its power is. I suspect that memories of it may be tampered as well.”

“I’m sure that Nozel can do something to contain it for the time being,” Nebra insisted. “That’s all the more reason to throw as much manpower as necessary into finding him.”

“Well…” Julius trailed off, face creased in consternation, fighting to keep a hold on the memories slipping away from him. “Yes. You’re right. You have my full permission to mount a search party by whatever means necessary to retrieve that artifact, and that man. I will put it in writing. Let’s get back to my office. Marx, will you witness?”

“Yes, sir.”

With Marx’s spell ended, Solid rose. He and Nebra exchange a troubled look. It had been almost twenty four hours since the castle had come down, but already a damning pattern had emerged.

They weren’t surprised that Julius couldn’t remember what he’d promised to write for them by the time he reached his office. 

That didn’t mean they could not accomplish what needed to be done. Julius had sent out an impressive team with all the skill and resources needed to clear rubble and search for people, so Nebra and Solid threw their energy into what they already had. But when they returned to the site late that morning, they found it thickly shrouded in a filthy haze that had forced their search team to retreat. Not even the wind mages Julius sent could clear the dust. The stone mages could not properly move rubble when they could not see what they were doing. There was so much magic in the area that no one could decipher a mage in the debris from any other magic signature. And everyone, within a matter of hours, had forgotten why they were there. Nebra and Solid were left with a search party that didn’t know that they should be searching.

Nebra oversaw the constant loop of magic knights into and out of the ruins all day. The job took far more effort than it usually would, because the knights forgot what they were doing as soon as they entered the smog. She resorted to yelling orders like a drill sergeant, a technique that annoyed and exhausted both her and the knights. Nebra’s voice grew hoarse around sundown, and Solid, who’d come and gone with several of the groups, took up the mantle. But exhaustion made the knights stubborn, and before they could be pushed to dissent, Nebra called off the search for the night. It was shortly after midnight.

The next morning, the knights awoke to a stifling smog. While they slept the dust had gotten thicker, darker, and more acrid. It’d spread like a toxin, quick and broad, and the knights were forced to flee deeper into the woods or be smothered by it. They scattered; they no longer remembered what they were doing there or if they should be there at all, and unsure if the smog was toxic, many of them took off into the sky and didn’t look back. Nebra and Solid rounded up as many as they could, hoping that if the dust had spread, it had settled at its source, and a proper search could finally be conducted.

But their small team, flying overhead, saw the ruins shrouded in a cloud of dust far thicker than it had been before. The grime swirling in the air over the fallen castle was so dense that it almost looked solid. They had known all along that this was not dust naturally thrown up by the falling of the castle; but seeing it act this way, seeing it spread and consume the campsite of the magic knights trying to work through it, proved once and for all that this was malicious, and it did not want them there. Nebra could not deny that now, the team she had left could not perform.

Nebra sent them home. Solid screamed and cursed her out, but that didn’t stop her from telling the magic knights to go. Then, with one last long, desperate look at the shrouded ruins, she told him to take them home as well. She had another plan.

* * *

Compared to the cool, modern colors and formal tone of the Silver Eagles headquarters, the Crimson Lion Kings headquarters had the atmosphere of a bonfire. Deep saturated reds and golds bombarded every inch of the place, and the knights, moving about with an energy like crackling embers, made Solid feel more tired. Although it was almost painfully difficult at this point, he tried to stay optimistic: at least Fuegoleon was here. The Crimson Lion King was notorious for being hard to pin down, constantly on the move from the moment he woke to the moment he slept. If he had not been in his office, it would have cost him valuable time that they simply could not afford.

The late morning light shining in from the window washed out the warm colors of the office and made their shadows long on the dark carpet. It smelled of candles and old books. Multiple clocks ticked throughout the room, but Solid didn’t look for them. Upon stepping into the office, Fuegoleon Vermillion eyed the exhausted, dusty Silva with a puzzled frown. Solid clenched his jaw, watching the emotions play across the older royal’s tan face. It wasn’t clear to him if he should get his hopes up when Fuegoleon finally spoke. “Solid. What can I do for you?”

“Who is the captain of the Silver Eagles?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who is the captain of the Silver Eagles?” Solid crossed the office, blocking out the light overhead. His blue eyes shone like sharpened diamonds. “Do you remember?”

“...Yes. Nozel is.”

“You remember.” He deflated, growing smaller in his relief. His eyes lost their frantic shine. “Do you know who he is?”

“Of course I do!” Fuegoleon’s puzzled frown hardened into a scowl. “What is this about?”

“Nozel is trapped with a magic artifact, and people are forgetting about him. We need help from people who remember him. Please help us.”

Fuegoleon was on his feet before he finished the statement. “Of course. I’ll alert my vice-captain of my departure and we can leave immediately.”

* * *

Nebra stared down at the tiny woman slumped below the tall pink hat. Dorothy’s eyes were closed, and she snored softly as she slept. Nebra’s brow quirked. She spared a glance over her shoulder.

In the doorway, Kirsch smiled back at her. He flicked his wrist. “Go on. Talk to her, if that’s what you’re here to do.”

Nebra looked down at Dorothy again. She had yet to stir, and it didn’t look like she’d be waking any time soon.

“She’s listening,” Kirsch insisted. “Talk to her.”

Nebra curled her finger to her lip. This felt off. She’d never had the awkward privilege of speaking to the Coral Peacocks captain before except a few casual greetings if she happened to be awake at magic knight events, so maybe this was how she always greeted visitors. But why was this allowed? Who would possibly tolerate this?

Still, she had no choice but to play along. Clearing her throat, she said, “Captain Dorothy, I need your help in a serious matter. I’m afraid that you may be one of the only people who is able to help. My brother is missing.”

Kirsch, who barely remembered his missing cousin’s name when asked, cocked a brow.

“He’s activated some sort of magic artifact, and people are forgetting about him. Since you are his good friend, I’m hoping that your memories of him haven’t completely faded. Can you help me?”

The soft sound of Dorothy’s breathing was her only answer. Nebra shifted her weight, feeling quiet dread creep into her veins. When the question had gone unanswered for so long that she felt foolish for asking, she turned on her heel and stepped toward the door.

Her foot didn’t meet the ground before she was swallowed whole by Glamor World.

The ground beneath her was suddenly soft and uneven. Her arms shot out to her sides, helicoptering until she regained her footing. The air smelled like bubblegum and pumpkin spice. Cotton candy clouds floated to and fro, making up both the land and sky. Drifting through the air high over her head were stuffed animals, paperwork, snacks, and weapons. Nebra’s body felt both light and immeasurably heavy. She craned her neck to take it all in, knowing that somewhere the world’s god must be hiding.

A tea table appeared in front of her with a flamboyant puff of glitter. Two chairs joined it, one directly behind Nebra and the other across the table from her. Dorothy fell from the sky, landing in the opposite chair with a giggle. “Lady Nebra!” the witch chimed. “Take a seat! Let’s talk!”

The chair behind her thrusted forward, taking Nebra’s legs out from under her. She landed in it with a startled grunt and was brought to sit in front of the table, which had gained a tea set. The kettle poured her a cup of tea on its own.

Dorothy took a generous sip from her filled cup. “Nozel is missing! How terrible! What happened?”

Nebra took a moment to regain her bearings. To say that she was disoriented was a gross understatement; she felt like she’d been swung into the air by her ankle, and she’d landed somewhere totally alien. The pastel aesthetic and welcoming scent didn’t mask this world’s dangerous undertones. Days of poor sleep and hard work hung from her body like heavy shackles here. She knew enough about the dream magic user to know that getting drowsy could be a death sentence. She picked up the tea and took a short sip, hoping it would keep her wired enough to get through this chat. “Nozel triggered some sort of magic artifact in a dungeon castle. The castle came down on top of him, and now he’s trapped there. But we can’t organize a search party to look for him, because everyone forgets why they’re there as soon as they start.”

“Oh my! That’s terrible!” Dorothy swung her legs, her heels clicking against the base of her chair in a steady rhythm. “I’ve never heard of a magic item that can do something like that! Altering dozens of people’s memories at once… that’s incredibly powerful. Do you have any idea what it is?”

“No,” she said. “But we can figure out exactly what is going on with it after we rescue Nozel. You remember him, don’t you? I know that your magic creates another reality where many things don’t affect you.”

“Yes, it does!” She smiled. “Clever girl. You’ve been studying me.”

Nebra offered a thin smile. “Not exactly. I’ve been told about you. Does that mean that you can help us? Maybe people in Glamor World will retain their memories.”

“I don’t know about that,” Dorothy replied, tapping her lip. “This is another dimension, but it doesn’t affect people’s memories! It’s hard to say for sure, but I don’t think anyone who visits Glamor World would be safe from this artifact, especially if they were in the waking world when it activated.”

Her smile faded. “I see. Have  _ you _ been awake in the last two days?”

“Have  _ I? _ Let’s see…” Her purple eyes trailed around the world, following floating debris without seeing it. “Yes, for a little while. Why do you ask?”

A thick, familiar cold worked its way through Nebra’s veins. “You don’t know?”

Dorothy pursed her lips. Her legs stopped, pressed to the base of her chair. “Your brother! You’re here about your brother. I’m sorry! He’s with an artifact.”

“Right.” She set down her tea cup and curled her fingers to her lip, eyeing the witch nervously. “And why did I tell you that?”

“He’s trapped with it.” Dorothy’s brow furrowed. She lowered her eyes and tapped her palm against her head. “Wow! How could I forget that?”

“Right,” she said again. “We need your help getting him out.”

“Of course! I’ll help. Your brother and I are good friends, you know.”

“I… I know.” Nebra sucked in a slow candy-flavored breath. “That’s why I came to see you. Will you come with me to the ruins?”

“Of course I will!” Dorothy hopped up, and her chair vanished. “He’s so strong, but no one can be trapped forever. I can use my magic to clear the wreckage, and we can find him and the artifact.” Nozel’s form poofed to life beside her, his back to them as he crossed his arms and shook his head. “If you take me there, I’ll do whatever I can to help. Poor Noez, buried under a castle-”

Nebra stiffened. “What?”

Dorothy stopped short and turned to her, frowning. “What?”

“N… Nozel.” Her face twisted into a grimace, gaining terror with each quaking beat of her heart. “His name is  _ Nozel. _ You remember that, don’t you?”

“No-zel.” The name had the feel of tin foil in her mouth. She pressed her fingertip to her lip, and her gaze grew distant as she struggled to wrap her mind around it. “Nozel. Nozel. Nozel. I know him. I  _ know _ I know him. Er… How did I know him again?”

“My brother!” Nebra’s voice cracked. “Dorothy, he’s my big brother! He’s your good friend! Don’t forget him!”

“I won’t!” she cried. Glamor world rippled like the surface of a pond during a light drizzle. Dream Nozel turned toward her and tilted his head. She looked back at him, and Nebra saw in her eyes confusion growing like an impending storm. “That’s not what he looked like. But I know him. Isn’t this… close?”

Dream Nozel turned to Nebra, and it took every ounce of composure she had to not leap to her feet and scream. The form of her brother was growing fuzzier with each passing second, his clothes losing details, his hair losing its shape. Even his height fluctuated, like his image was warped by an old broken mirror. But his face, even at its clearest, was smooth and blank, featureless, except for two white holes, like tears in a cloth, where his eyes would have been.

* * *

From the sky, Fuegoleon and Solid examined the smog blanketing the ancient castle ruins. It’d changed since the Silvas left; receding from the forest, covering only the ruins again. And instead of the thick, swirling cloud that hung heavy in the air, it was growing vertically, rising skyward.

Solid let out a breath. Now that they were here, they could finally start making some progress. Although fire wasn’t the best attribute for clearing rubble, the fire spirit must be stronger than whatever magic was wreaking havoc on their search effort. “We need to clear the wreckage without causing more damage until we get him out. That’s why you’re here. Can you and Salamander do that?”

“Yes, I think we can.” Fuegoleon’s brow furrowed as he thought out a plan. “Clear the wreckage, cause no damage, get the item, find Nozel… That should be doable. Right, Salamander?”

The fire spirit let out a rumble of agreement.

“Good.” The tightness unwound from Solid’s voice like a knot coming undone. “Nebra went to get Dorothy to help us. She’s good at this sort of thing, apparently. Together, we should be able to make some progress, even if we can’t get the smog to clear. But there’s no reason we can’t start before they get here.”

Salamander’s wingbeats drew a thin current of dust toward them. It stuck to Fuegoleon’s hair, dulling its fiery shine. Fuegoleon’s answer came on a delay. “Salamander should be able to see through the dust. We can clear the wreckage…”

Solid leaned toward him from the back of his water eagle, waiting hopefully for him to go on. “Okay. So let’s clear wreckage.”

“Clear the wreckage, cause no damage, get the item, find Nozel…”

“Yeah. So let’s start.”

He blinked, as if trying to clear something from his vision. “Cl… Clear the wreckage, cause no damage, get the…”

Solid’s blood curdled. He realized, to paralytic horror, that he recognized the look creeping into Fuegoleon’s face: that vacant, haunted stare as the memory he was so focused on burned away like straw on fire. “Fuegoleon, focus. Clear the wreckage, get the item, and get Nozel. That is what we’re here to do.”

He nodded. Salamander let out an uneasy growl as the fire mage muttered, “Yes, clear the wreckage, get the item… cause no damage… Get…”

“ _ Nozel.” _ The name fractured on his tongue. It slipped between his teeth like dropped glass, coming out in sharp shards. “We’re here to get Nozel! Don’t forget!”

“Nozel.” Fuegoleon shook his head, the look on his face strained. “I won’t forget. We are here for N… We are here for…” He lifted his hand, pressing it to his temple as if he could trap his memories that way. “We are here for…?”

Solid leapt from his eagle, landing on Salamander’s back. His fingers curled around a fistful of Fuegoleon’s tunic. “Do not forget him! Listen to me! We are here to find Nozel!”

He shook him with all his might, screaming into his empty face. Fuegoleon only swayed like a tree in the wind.

Solid’s panic burst into terror like a can under pressure. He wound his fist back and sank it into the Vermillion’s face. “Fuegoleon! Do not forget Nozel!”

He took the hit like he didn’t see it coming. It sent him stumbling, tripping over Salamander’s spines and collapsing onto his butt against the base of his wing. He cupped his bruising cheek; a thin trail of blood dribbled from his nose. “Solid, that was uncalled for!”

Solid screamed over him, his voice broken and booming. “Do you remember him?”

“...Who?”

His hands dropped to his sides, his growing panic locking him up like a rabbit staring into the face of a wolf. He stood there, hollow, the place that would come to be his brother’s grave at rest underneath. Fuegoleon was forgetting: he could see it, still happening, in the contours on his face, in the growing dissonance between where he was and what reason he had to be there. Solid had failed. He had lost.

Nebra approached, standing atop a cloud in motion. She was alone. She stopped above Salamander, eyes sweeping the trio with a dark look. “Do you know why you’re here, Fuegoleon?”

He clung to the question in silence, searching his darkening mind for an answer he knew he should have. “No,” he finally stated, tipping his head back to look at her. “What is going on?”

“Go home. I will explain in detail as soon as possible.” She extended her hand to her brother, pulling him aboard.

Fuegoleon watched the two draw back from Salamander, and slowly, he got to his feet. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what is going on, but I can see when I’ve failed someone.”

“It’s not your fault,” Nebra muttered, the words dry and lifeless. “We’ll talk at my earliest convenience.”

Fuegoleon’s lips flattened into a thin line. He nodded, and then he turned Salamander around and flew off. It took minutes before the two were an orange dot on the horizon.

“Okay, so that didn’t work.” Nebra let out a deep breath and leered at the dust cloud below. Like a live nebula the dust was rising, forming peaks and columns over the ruins. “But there are still things we can try. There are other people who knew Nozel well… Not people with any practical training, but that might have to take a back seat at this point. Everyone is forgetting quickly, but if you could get Fuegoleon here, that means he knew Nozel up until he got here. Maybe if we could get someone here quicker, we could-”

“Nebra.”

She lifted her eyes to meet her brother’s. Thick tears pooled in Solid’s eyes, spilled down his cheeks, and dribbled down his chin in a steady stream. His lips parted in a tortured grimace, and he drew in a shaky breath, forcing broken words through a sob. “I’m starting to forget what he looked like.”

Nebra’s heart sank like a stone. She threw her arms around him, and he crumbled, sobbing into her shoulder until he shook. “I can’t lose him,” he wept. “I can’t lose him the way we lost mother!”

“We are  _ not _ going to lose him.” The words twisted painfully in her throat as they came out. She was haunted, doggedly, by how everything she’d done up to this point proved that a lie. “We are going to find him, Solid. We are not going to lose anyone.”

“What can we do?” He drew back, pressing his hands to his eyes. Tears dribbled past his palms, rolling down his wrists and soaking his sleeves. “We tried everyone! No one else knows him like we do!”

“You’re insultingly short-sighted.” She grabbed his elbow and pulled him to a crouch beside her. Her cloud rushed through the air, taking them deeper into the forsaken realm. “We’ve just saved the best for last.”

* * *

Charmy reached into her bowl and pulled out a fistful of jerky nuggets. She shoved them into her mouth, already packed full with food, and let out a high-pitched, delighted hum. As she wrapped her hand around another fistful of meat, she turned to their guests. “You want some? It’s super yummy!”

The revulsion on Solid’s face could have crumbled a girl with lesser constitution, but Charmy, confident in her own tastes, didn’t so much as flinch. With a shrug, she shoved the jerky into her own mouth instead. “Okay! Your loss!”

“Someone is supposed to be getting Noelle,” Nebra snarled, her nails digging into the meat of her crossed arms. “We are on a very tight schedule, and we need to see our sister.”

“We know, we know!” Finral spread his hands and smiled plaintively, his violet eyes narrowing like a rat in pain. “Captain Yami is getting her for you. She’ll be here any second! Charmy is just trying to be hospitable…”

“No bad mood can withstand my nummies!” the tiny woman cheered, waving her bowl of beef nuggets like a flag. “Are you  _ sure _ you don’t want any?”

Solid lifted his hand, ready to slap the bowl out of her tiny, greasy fingers, but Nebra caught him by the wrist on the downturn. Her tone was level, but painfully icy as she addressed Finral. “We do not have time for snacking. Get Noelle  _ now.” _

A frightened shudder took Finral back a step. With a nervous chuckle, he turned and scuttled out the room, stammering something about checking on the captain.

They continued to wait. Charmy munched loudly on dry beef nuggets. The fact that she was adding her own sound effects didn’t make her less annoying, or make the jerky seem less appealing to the two very hungry royals, who hadn’t had a proper meal in almost three days. The dark brick walls grew uglier without distractions from them. The main room smelled of smoke, dust, and warm bodies. Seconds lasted minutes in the hideous, archaic castle. Solid’s stomach growled like an awakening sea beast.

Finally, Yami Sukehiro’s voice echoed cantankerously from down the hall. When he sauntered into the main room, Noelle was only a step behind him, walking tall, but very obviously in his broad shadow. Her gaze skimmed past her siblings, trailing along their dirty robes like she was afraid to look them in the eye.

Yami let out a long sigh, accented with an acrid puff of smoke. “Okay, she’s here. Say what you gotta say.”

Nebra and Solid exchanged a glance. The rampant irreverence here would have to be addressed at a later time, they agreed silently. Nebra turned to Noelle. “How many siblings do you have?”

Noelle was visibly buffeted by the strangeness of the question. The answer hung cautiously on the tip of her tongue. “Three…?”

Nebra and Solid let out a breath. Around them, the Black Bulls exchanged puzzled looks.

“Who is the captain of the Silver Eagles?” Solid asked.

“Nozel is,” she murmured. “Did something happen…?”

The air got lighter for the two middle Silvas. Solid stood straighter, his shoulders broadening as he rolled them back. Nebra’s fingers uncoiled from her arm, and she brought them instead to rest against her lower lip as her eyes scanned the room. In her moment of relief, she recognized that the growing look of befuddlement on Yami’s face was going to be a problem if they didn’t move this along. “Yes. Come with us. We have a serious matter to attend to.”

“O-Okay.” She shifted her weight to her heels, for a moment looking like she would dart in the other direction. “Do I need to pack a bag, or-”

“Just your grimoire. And your wand, if you’re still using it. Hurry. Time is a factor.”

Noelle’s hand landed on her grimoire satchel, strapped to her hip. She stepped around Yami, sparing him a glance that didn’t quite communicate anything, before hurrying to her siblings. Nebra and Solid flanked her on each side and ushered her swiftly toward the door.

“Hold on a second!” Yami hollered. “You can’t just run off with my people, even if you are the royal family. Somebody better tell me what’s going on here!”

Nebra pushed her younger siblings along; she wouldn’t risk anyone cutting them off before they got to the door. Then, she turned to Yami. “Do  _ you _ know who the captain of the Silver Eagles is?”

The man’s lips curled into a puzzled scowl. He put his hand on his hip and contemplated, and quickly came to the blank spot in his memory where Nozel should have been. Nebra watched it happen to every single person in the room. While they were struck dumb, she turned and hurried her siblings out of the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a long couple of days! But I'm sure the hard part is over, now that they've got their rescue team. Yup. Nothing but smooth sailing from here.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nebra, Solid, and Noelle make their way into the ruins where Nozel disappear, and promptly get separated. In the process, they run into some unexpected obstacles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally into the meat of the story! The entree! The main course! The reason this is worth reading in the first place! All that stuff before this? That was the soup and salad. The free bread. The appetizer your friend makes you order because they skipped lunch. NOW we're getting to the good stuff! Gird your loins, it's gonna get messy!

“No one remembers him?”

Solid leered at the cold wind. They sped across the skyline on his eagle spell, the sun rising over the horizon to meet them. “Yes. Isn’t that what we just got done telling you?”

“I heard you,” his younger sister stammered, “but…  _ no one?” _

“As far as we can tell, we are the only three who can hold onto any memory of him,” Nebra said gravely. “You must have seen the look on Sukehiro’s face when I asked him about the captain of the Silver Eagles.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Noelle let her words fizzle out. There was nothing that she could say that wouldn’t sound grating and repetitive to her older siblings. Still, she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She could see Nozel’s face in her mind’s eye as clearly as if she’d seen him yesterday; she could see his face two months ago, two years ago, ten years ago. Down to the blue flecks in his eyes, the disdainful curve of his mouth. He still felt entirely real, even if he wasn’t sitting beside her. He was woven into the very fabric of her life like a steel thread, for better or worse. And now he was disappearing from everyone else’s? “But if everyone else is forgetting so quickly-- his friends? They all forgot him, too?”

“Yes!” Solid snapped. “What part of that was not clear?”

Noelle shrank, her eyes falling to her knees. “...Why aren’t our memories affected? Is it because we’ve known him the longest?”

“Obviously you have not known him longer than… Fuegoleon, for example,” Nebra scoffed. “But I don’t know. This artifact is a complete mystery, and people forget about it, too. The Department of Magic is unable to do any research on it because they can’t hold onto a thought about it for long enough.” Nebra paused, her eyes landing on her brother’s back. He’d started to curl in on himself again. “And our memories are  _ not _ unaffected.”

Noelle stared at her, startle. There was nothing damning in that look, but Nebra couldn’t displace a painful feeling of guilt. She would never say it out loud-- not now, with Solid so fragile and Noelle so lost, but Noelle’s memories were now more pristine than her own.

Dust added a faint grit to the air as the trio neared the fallen castle. The sisters narrowed their eyes against it as Solid flew them in a wide arc over the ruins, surveying the new shape they had taken. A chilly silence fell over the three as they gazed down at the ruins below. 

Finally, Noelle broke the silence. “I thought you said that he was buried under rubble?”

“I did,” Nebra murmured. “He was.”

But it was not rubble and dust rising out of the ground where the broken castle had fallen. In fact, the dust was so thin now that it was little more than invisible whisps reflecting light. What stood in the place of the ruined castle, shining a pearly white against the late afternoon sun, was the House of Silva.

Solid landed them in the woods surrounding the castle. From a distance that put the entire structure in sight, they stared at it, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

“So… he’s in there?” Noelle eyed her siblings in careful side glances. “We have to go in to get him?”

“This was obviously manifested by the artifact,” Nebra mused, “so yes. He must be inside.”

“Do you think this is the  _ actual _ House Silva?” Solid murmured. “Was it moved here? Or is this a fake?”

The siblings settled into an unsure silence once again. They combed over the details of the magnificent castle, comparing them against their memories. Nebra lifted her hand. “That tower isn’t on our House Silva. It’s a fake.”

Noelle and Solid followed her gaze. A watch tower, set within the oldest part of the castle, stood where they knew that none stood at home. But it looked perfectly in place; made of the same worn brick as its surroundings, painted the same dulling white. The untrained eye would have never thought it was out of place, and even with the knowledge they had,  _ they _ hadn’t noticed it.

“Let’s go over this plan one more time,” Nebra declared. “We are going to find Nozel. We are going to find the magic-trapping chest. And we are going to find the artifact. We are going to do this quickly, and we are going to get out. Let’s waste no more time here than we have to.”

Solid and Noelle nodded seriously. Noelle straightened and pumped her fist into the air. “I guess we should be ready for anything!”

“We should be ready to fight our way inside,” Nebra said dryly. “I’m sure whatever is causing this won’t see us as welcome guests just because it’s masquerading as our home.”

Noelle deflated, her flimsy bravado collapsing under her sister’s cold logic. She set her hand on her grimoire satchel and undid the loop. From its side pocket, she slipped out her wand.

“So how do we want to try to get in?” Solid muttered.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t try the main doors first,” Nebra sighed. “What have we got to lose?”

“Our heads, if it’s heavily guarded.”

“...I don’t think this is a heavily populated building,” the elder Silva said slowly, eyes trailing for the umpteeth time over the structure. “All that was in the original was the artifact and Nozel, and there were no guards at the doors. We are either fighting imaginary obstacles once inside, or we are fighting him. Either way…”

The statement fizzled off, perfectly clear. It wouldn’t matter what they were fighting; they would either be unopposed, or outmatched.

Solid let out a huff, ruffling his bangs with his breath. “Then let’s get going.”

Although the thick ash that had scattered their knights was gone, a violently powerful magic haze seized them when they approached the castle. Noelle’s hand shot to her throat, and she sucked in a strangled breath that threw her into a coughing fit. Nebra and Solid momentarily succumbed to the same state, but Solid recovered quickly enough to grab his sisters by the arms and drag them toward the castle.

At the very least, their eyes weren’t burning. And by the time the sisters recovered from their bout, they could see that looming over them were the massive double doors of House Silva. Solid released them to examine the structure for weaknesses. They were identical to their doors at home; the only difference was the lack of royal guards standing on either side to open them. He grasped the handles and pulled. The doors, unsurprisingly, were locked. He released them with a hiss and rubbed his hands.

“Maybe we could try another entrance,” Nebra muttered. “The other entrances are designed to be defended with manpower. They may be easier to break down.”

“Or we could lock pick these,” Solid grumbled. “That would be quicker.”

Noelle took a few steps back. She pointed her wand at the door.

“Do you know how to pick a lock, Solid?” Nebra asked, eyes narrowed dubiously.

“No,” he snarled, “but I thought that you might.”

“Why would  _ I _ know how to pick a lock?”

“Can you two stand back?”

The two whirled toward Noelle, standing several paces back in the glow of her magic. Poised at the end of her wand was a concentration of intensely powerful water magic.

She didn’t wait for them to move before she let it loose. Sea Dragon’s Roar exploded from the end of her wand. Nebra and Solid dove out of the way as the aqua dragon collided with the doors with a thunderous boom. The castle shook with the impact, and Noelle, her heels dug stubbornly into the dirt, was pushed backward. But the dragon didn’t falter, and with a burst of thick wood, it plowed through the locked doors and into the interior of the castle.

Nebra and Solid stared, open-mouthed, at the destroyed entrance. The sounds of the spell tearing through walls, furniture, and statuary resounded into the open air long after it disappeared from sight. Still agape, they turned to Noelle.

She spread her hands in a nonchalant shrug. “What? We’re in a hurry, aren’t we? It’s not  _ really _ House Silva.” Clutching her wand to her chest, she tiptoed up to the broken doors. “Should we keep going?”

Together, the siblings stepped into the castle. The high, pearly ceilings and long tiled hallways of House Silva stretched out before them. A light scent of fresh flowers hung in the air, ridding it of any lingering miasma that followed them inside. The damage that Sea Dragon’s Roar had done, which they’d seen a moment ago from outside, was gone; healed in the moments they’d turned away from it. Pristine except for its destroyed front doors, the castle stood in peaceful quiet.

For a few tense seconds they stood within the front hall, waiting for something to happen. The place was more intensely magical than ever, but instead of hanging heavy in the air, that magic had taken the solid form of the walls, ceilings, adornments, leaving the open air light and comfortable. Nothing they could sense moved. Nothing was coming after them. Exchanging a puzzled look, Nebra took the lead, and they started down the main hall.

In the well lit, pristine hallway, the only sound was the echo of their footsteps. The siblings didn’t let their guard down; eyes roving to and fro, their magic poised to intervene should something come to meet them. But while the minutes ticked by, their attention wasn’t drawn to an unexpected obstacle, or a mysterious noise; instead each of them realized the same strange thing in their own time.

“Do these halls seem...” Solid paused, feeling out the right word. “ _ Off _ to you?”

The sisters glanced at him with a serious frown. Although it wasn’t quickly obvious, it was hard to ignore that all of the proportions of the castle were skewed. The ceilings rose too high; the hallways were a little too long. Some walls were a tad too bright, as if bathed in a light without a source. On others, the shadows blocked out a little too much light. It wasn’t wrong, or even completely unnerving. It still felt familiar; homey. But it wasn’t exactly the way it should be.

“It might get more distorted the deeper we go,” Nebra ventured. “And if it can repair itself like we’ve seen, it can probably change without warning, too. We need to start moving with purpose. I guess we could start in the places where Nozel spends most of his time.”

“So…” Solid unfurled a finger for each item on his list. “His study, his bedroom, and the music room.”

Nebra nodded. “Yes. If I didn’t think that this place would get more disorienting the farther we go, I would suggest we split up, but…”

“Those rooms are pretty close together. It shouldn’t take us too much time to do a sweep,” Noelle pointed out. “What about the chest?”

“The chest was next to him when the castle fell, wasn’t it, Solid?” Nebra asked. When her brother nodded, she continued, “It couldn’t have gotten far. If we find Nozel, the chest is likely close by.”

“...That’s a better way to start than looking for it some other place,” Solid muttered, shrugging.

Moving more quickly now, they made their way deeper into the castle. Where the hall forked, they turned left, leading them away from the outer portion of the castle with large, open rooms, and into its interior, where the private spaces lied.

The halls kept their distortions, but they didn’t get worse. The layout was unchanged; the castle still felt like a slightly different version of home. The corridor containing Nozel’s bedchamber split from the hall that led to their recreational spaces. Where the halls split, Nebra abruptly stopped.

Her siblings clamored to a stop behind her. They stood, staring at the back of her head, waiting, but she offered no explanation. The seconds ticked on. Solid opened his mouth to ask a question, but stopped short.

There were other footsteps in the hall.

Noelle and Solid’s heads swiveled around, searching wildly for the source of the noise. The one faint rhythm split into two: one quick and soft, and the other slower, heavier, louder. Solid bristled like a startled cat, and he jabbed his finger down the hall that led to their recreational spaces. “There! I saw someone!”

“I hear someone that way!” Noelle whispered, pointing down the bedroom corridor.

“One of you better be wrong,” Nebra muttered, reaching for her grimoire.

The echoes of the footsteps, like the halls they resonated through, were off. The sound didn’t come from one direction; instead it reverberated through the walls, hitting them from every direction at once.

Solid shook his head and took a dogged step forward. “I saw someone! I saw them!”

Noelle pointed her wand, her magic bubbling nervously around her. She planted herself determinedly in front of the bedroom hallway, where the loud, slow footsteps were rumbling in the walls. Nebra reached to stop her from attacking prematurely when Solid took off down the other hall. With a frustrated grimace, she darted after him.

That left Noelle to be the only one to feel the big slow footsteps shift from the walls, to the floor. To materialize into a person, walking toward her from the direction they’d come. To hear the deep, blade-sharp voice that shook her to her very core.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Noelle’s magic dissolved to a puddle around her feet. A terror arose, buried so deep within her that she almost didn’t recognize it. But it was known, it was familiar, and it blotted out everything she had learned in the last seventeen years and told her one single thing.

_ Run. _

She took off down the bedroom corridor at a blind sprint. It stretched out ahead of her endlessly, the walls too narrow, the doors too far apart. She couldn’t see the end of it. The faster she ran, the bigger the doors looked.

“Are you running from me, young lady?”

The footsteps reverberated through the floor behind her. Slow and steady, they didn’t pick up their pace. But each step seemed to bring them much, much closer. Noelle couldn’t create a mana skin around her legs, but she pushed herself faster anyway. She rocketed down the hall until the passing doors were a blur.

“Stop running  _ right now.” _

As easily as if she’d been rendered to stone, she skidded to a stop. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest that she couldn’t tell that she was shaking. The tip of her wand trembled in her hand. Some tiny part of her screamed to ready a spell, but she couldn’t make herself move.

Those slow, heavy footsteps advanced slowly down the hall. Noelle’s pulse escalated with each one. She could feel the powerful water magic of the man marching up behind her, pressing upon her long, long before he drew near. He was  _ so _ far down the hall, and yet each step he took closed a distance that seemed like miles. She couldn’t tell how far away he actually was. She couldn’t bring herself to look. Noelle could hardly breathe, her breath hitching to match the beat of her heart.

From the corner of her eye, a door cracked open, and a liquid rope shot out, caught her around her waist, and yanked her off her feet. Noelle couldn’t make herself move in time to stop herself from colliding with its source. The door shut behind her. The room plunged into dim silver light. She clung to the shoulders of her rescuer, scrambling to get her feet to cooperate and support her weight.

“Careful,” her crutch whispered, his hands finding her shoulders to keep her upright. “Shh. He’ll pass by soon.”

As her feet finally agreed to bear her weight, her pursuer passed by the door without stopping. The two held their breath until his path took him all the way down the long hall. In unison, they let out a sigh. Noelle, finally released from the clutches of a nightmarish memory, sprang away from her rescuer and smoothed her dress. “Uh, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. He doesn’t come through often, but when he does… Well, you seem to know what he’s like.” The young man stepped out of the shadow of the door, looking her over with a serious frown. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Her cheeks colored, and she kept her eyes on the door. She couldn’t believe that she’d reacted like that. What was she, a child? Those footsteps shouldn’t still have that effect on her. When was the last time she had seen  _ him _ anyway? It had to be almost eight years...

“Good. I am Nozel Silva. It’s nice to meet you, Lady…?”

Noelle straightened, her head spinning around to look at him. The young man standing before her was pale, lean, with short silver hair and bangs that fell into his face. A Silva cloak was secured around his shoulders, and his narrow amethyst eyes looked a little too big for his angular face. He stood only a few inches taller than her, and from the look on his face, he felt less collected than he sounded.

This was Nozel. A Nozel that Noelle had not seen since she was a tiny child. A Nozel who was younger than she was.

* * *

“I’m telling you, I saw someone this way!” Solid called, skidding against the tile as he took a corner too quickly. His jog finally reached a full gallop, and he leapt atop a board of water that formed under his feet.

Ahead of him, always in the too-dark shadows of the too-tall halls, a figure paused at the next turn. With a cocky spring in their step, they darted out of sight.

“I believe you, but you can’t just run off like this!” Nebra called. Legs reinforced with magic, she sprinted after him, only taking the sharp turns a little more gracefully. Finally managing to catch up to him, she saw the last glimpse of the figure before it slipped out of sight again. “We are supposed to stick together!”

“My ass!” Solid snarled. “We thought we needed Noelle to get in, but we didn't. Now that we’re here, we don’t need her to keep up!” He rounded a corner like a deer on ice, the bottom of his water board slamming against the wall before it rocketed him forward. 

Nebra took it on her heel, putting so much weight on the joint that she would have snapped it clean off if she hadn’t armored it with magic. “We still can’t leave without her!”

“We’ll pull her out of the rubble later. She’ll be fine.” His lips curled into a triumphant sneer. The figure ahead of them only rounded the corner seconds before him. He was gaining. “First, I’ll capture this  _ thing, _ and then we can get some information out of it!”

He didn’t even try to miss the wall: his board slammed into it, and he used the surface to rocket his board forward. The wall dented under the pressure, the hall throwing back the sound of the impact a little too loudly. Solid’s board tipped until it was almost vertical. He leaned forward, his arms stretched ahead of him as the distance between him and his target got smaller and smaller.

The person flung open a set of doors ahead of him. The sound of them slamming against the walls as they swung on their hinges made him startle, and when his target ducked, he didn’t have the time to fix his balance. He tucked his head as he slammed into soft grass, tumbling head over heel. He landed in a kneel, swaying with vertigo. Nebra skidded to a halt in the doorway.

They were standing in a lesser courtyard. The ground was blanketed in plush grass. Trees and bushes dotted the yard. A neatly kept stone path wove among the flora, and a fountain stood at the center of the courtyard, depicting a maiden pouring water into its basin. Sun warmed the earth. Nebra’s eyes swept the place in long, dubious glances. She recognized this place. This was part of their home. It wasn’t how it looked now. But it was a perfectly preserved version of it.

From behind the fountain, a small child poked his head out to watch them. His gaze settling on Solid, he strutted out of hiding and pointed at him. “Ha-ha!”

Solid pushed himself to his feet. He wiped the dirt from his face and leered back at the little boy standing before him, teeth bared in a baffled scowl. “What in the hell…”

Another child, this one several years older, lifted herself from the lip of the fountain and strolled to the little boy’s side. She took in the siblings with a critical frown before turning to the little boy. “Who are they? Where did you find them?”

“They’re intruders!” the little boy cried. “They broke into House Silva!”

“We…!” Solid couldn’t form a full sentence. His vision was still swimming with the vertigo of his fall, and the sight before him sent his mind on a violent round of somersaults.

The boy stepped closer, his hand on his hip as he jabbed his finger in his face. “You! Broke! In!”

“Don’t patronize our intruders, Solid.” The little girl rolled her eyes. “People  _ do _ come and go without you knowing, you know.”

“Nu-uh!” The boy whirled on her, cheeks puffed in indignation. “I know who’s coming!”

The little girl launched a retort that set the two bickering. While they were distracted, Nebra walked to Solid’s side. The two examined the children with wide-eyed, blank stares.

“Is that me?” Solid’s voice came out a hushed murmur. “Is that what I looked like?”

Eyes still glued to the children, Nebra nodded. “Yes. And that’s me.”

“Why are they here?”

“I don’t know, Solid, I have been here the same length of time that you have.”

“Okay, okay. We should subdue them, right? That’s what they must be here for? Distractions?”

“They aren’t much of an obstacle.” Judging by their clothes, and how well Young Solid could talk, she would guess that he was four, and Young Nebra was nine. At that age, the two were rarely privy to the goings on of the castle, although Nebra remembered wryly that she thought that she was. “They may have information, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re just some sort of… byproduct of this castle.”

“What, it wanted fake versions of us to flesh out the scenery?” Solid’s lip curled. He couldn’t name why, but the idea made him itch. “Whatever. Let’s talk to them.”

Nebra nodded, and taking a step forward, she cleared her throat. The children turned toward her, eyes narrowed in suspicion, but to her relief, she had their attention. “We are just passing through. Maybe you can help us with our task, and then we can be out of here more quickly.”

Young Solid wrinkled his nose at her, his lower lip coming out in a poorly imitated scowl. But Young Nebra lifted her chin and curled her fingers to her mouth, doing her best to look down her nose at her much taller older self. “What is your business in House Silva?”

“We are looking for Lord Nozel,” she said carefully. “We need to speak with him, and then we’ll be on our way.”

“Big brother Nozel isn’t here!” Young Solid said, crossing his arms and turning up his chin.

“What he means,” Young Nebra, said, planting her hand demonstratively on the toddler’s head, “is that we don’t know where Nozel is. So we can’t help you.”

“You don’t have any idea?” Solid demanded, his eyes narrowed in an impatient leer.

“Well, you can’t just go wandering around the castle looking for him,” Young Nebra scoffed.

“Actually, we c…”

Solid stopped short, halted by a gesture from Nebra. She put on a plastic smile and asked, “Could we wait here while you fetch him for us? Maybe you’d have more luck finding him than we would.”

“No.”

Nebra’s smile vanished. She could remember, at nine years old, being clever and witty; she did not remember being such a little brat. “Well, then. We will have to continue our search for him on our own. Excuse us.”

“Wait!” As she turned to leave, Young Solid lunged for her, catching her by the skirt. He flashed her a grin, eyes shining with mischief. “You have to stay here and play with us now.”

“Play?” Solid echoed, his impatience reaching a boiling point. “We don’t have time to play! We can’t play with you! Let go of her!”

“Hmm, I think that it would be good for you to stay here with us until you can be escorted wherever you’re supposed to go.” Young Nebra tapped her lip and nodded, liking the idea. “Yes. You’re going to stay here and play with us.”

“We cannot play with you.” Nebra wrapped her fingers around Young Solid’s tiny hand and pulled it off her skirt. “Maybe after we find Nozel, we’ll come back-”

“No, you can’t leave now.” Young Nebra fixed her with a sharp-eyed smile. “I’ve changed my mind. Solid is right; you are intruders, so we cannot let you walk around the castle.”

“Play! Play! Play!” The toddler jumped up and down, his silver locks bouncing around his head as his magic billowed from him in uncontrolled waves.

Solid and Nebra backpedaled as the children advanced, and looked toward the door. But their closest exit was not open; closed when they were not looking. Their eyes darted around the courtyard, taking stock of all three exits: all closed. There was no easy way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this part felt a little slow, hang in there. The rest of this story Is Not. You will not be bored from here on out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solid and Nebra find themselves in one dangerous and terrifying situation after another, and Noelle struggles to make the right choices to keep them all safe. All the while, a young version of their oldest brother offers assistance that they can't trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Here's your warning! This is where people start getting hurt!
> 
> Even as the writer, it is FASCINATING to me that not a single event in this whole chapter was in the original draft of this story. These were all late-game additions that ambushed me on my ride home one day. This story evolved like a pokemon in a matter of a twenty minute drive.
> 
> But I digress. Gird your loins, it's about to get messy.

The bedroom, bathed in silver light, was dotted with splashes of color in the form of small toys and books: Magic bobbles made for children sat on the tops of shelves and dressers. Two new books on the study of magic sat atop the night stand. The bed was neatly unmade, one corner of the comforter folded back. The curtains were half-drawn, allowing a white column of light to set the middle of the room aglow. It was somehow plenty of light to keep the bedroom from feeling gloomy. It smelled of fresh flowers, despite there being none in the room. A cool spring breeze blew softly through the curtains. 

Noelle’s eyes trailed from the teenaged version of her eldest brother sitting across from her, to the mancala board set on the tea table between them. She’d never understood the appeal of this game. The outcome was always determined by who went first-- or at least that was how it was when Nebra forced her to play it. But this Young Nozel had invited her to a casual game with such an air of genuine politeness that she couldn’t bring herself to say no. He implied (although he didn’t directly say) that in the time that it would take them to play a game of mancala, the safety of the hall would be assured; and that was an assurity that she wanted. She scooped up a handful of marbles and dropped one in each bowl as she made her way around the board. When her final marble fell in a full bowl, she went to scoop up more to continue her turn.

Young Nozel’s hand shot up in a polite motion to stop. “Oh, we don’t play that way.” 

“Huh?... Oh, sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” He scooped up a bowl’s worth of marbles and started his turn. “If I may ask… Is Noelle your given name?”

She blinked at him, taken aback. She should have known from the moment he introduced himself that he didn’t know who she was; whatever version of Nozel that this was, this one had no reason to recognize her at this age. But this question felt even more bizarre than not being recognized. “Yes… Why wouldn’t it be?”

“No reason.” He kept his eyes on the mancala board, dropping each marble into its new bowl slowly. “It’s just that my baby sister’s name is Noelle.”

She let the sound of the mancala marbles fill the air while she tried to squirm away from the feeling of crawling skin. The idea that this Nozel had some image of his siblings that was not the same as hers… that he existed in some kind of bigger world, hadn’t dawned on her until now.

“Are you related to Acier Silva?” He lifted his eyes from the board just enough to peer at her from under his lashes. “You look a lot like her.”

“Uh.” She swallowed hard. A suspicion born out of the strangeness of this place told her that her answer would have great consequences. “Y-Yes.”

He looked down again, his turn ending, and sat back. “Acier Silva is my mother. How are you related?”

Slowly, she picked up a handful of marbles and dropped one into each consecutive bowl. There had to be right and wrong answers to this, and she had no way of knowing what those were.

“A cousin, then,” Young Nozel concluded, the lightness of ‘cousin’ assigning it the meaning of a family member of vague relation. “I understand. Are you here to see her?”

Noelle’s final marble landed in a very full bowl. It hit it with a dull  _ tink _ that didn’t carry through the air. “Is she here?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t she be?”

A full, shoulder-quaking shudder drove up Noelle’s back. She didn’t dare try to answer that.

They let the sound of falling marbles carry them through their next several turns. As the board was reduced to only a few lone marbles in each bowl, Nozel spoke up again. “Would you like me to take you to her?”

“Uhm…” Noelle used her finger to slide a lone marble into the next empty bowl. She’d thought that by the end of this game, maybe Nebra and Solid would find her, and then they could decide together what to do about this phantom, but now the game was almost over and that had not happened. “Actually, I came here with my brother and sister. I think that I should find them first.”

“Ah. I see.” He took his turn, and the marble moved another bowl closer to his basin. “Do you know where they might have gone?”

“They went down the east hall.”

“Then I will help you find them. Once you’re all together, I can take you where you need to go.”

Noelle nodded. Their game fell into silence again as they cleared the board.

“I think you’ve won,” Young Nozel declared, eying her larger collection of marbles. “I’ll put it away later, if you’d like to get going.”

“Oh, sure.” She rose from her chair and allowed the boy to lead her out of the room. They paused cautiously in the doorway, but when the hallway remained silent, they strolled down it without fear.

“Hey, Nozel,” Noelle murmured, glancing at him sideways, “How old are you?”

“I’m fifteen,” he replied, his chin ticking up a degree. “May I ask you the same question?”

“I’m seventeen,” she answered softly. In the long shadows of the hall, this young version of her brother looked even younger. She would have been barely a year old when Nozel was fifteen. To be standing next to him, older and more informed, felt like such a betrayal of what she’d always taken for granted. Like she was telling a lie.

“So we’re pretty close in age.” He flashed her a soft smile. “That’s interesting. Maybe we’ll be seeing more of each other.”

Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t find any words that didn’t feel like a hideous parody. She fixed her gaze ahead, but the image of that smile rested comfortably in her mind’s eye. It was something she would cherish, if it’d been real. If it’d been right.

She decided that if this was what she had found in this strange place, she should take advantage of it. They needed information, after all. “Nozel? You mentioned your mother earlier. Do you have other family?”

He nodded. “I have two sisters and a brother, all younger.” 

“How old are they?”

“My sisters are nine and one. My brother is four.”

“Are they all here?”

“Yes, somewhere. Probably causing trouble, if I’m being honest.” His lips curved a grumpy line, but it easily smoothed into a smile again. “Well, Not Noelle--  _ my  _ Noelle. She’s a very good baby. Maybe you can meet her, if she’s not asleep.”

“Oh, That-- That would be nice.” She rubbed her arm, eyes dropping to the floor. Once again she felt like she was having a conversation that was against some unspoken rule. Who was this kid? She’d never heard her big brother say anything that nice about her at any age.

“She’s probably with my mother-- Acier. She’s an amazing woman. I have a feeling that she would love you. Have you two met before?”

“N… No, we haven’t.”

“Then you’re in for a treat. Once we find your siblings, I’ll introduce you all. She’ll be able to help you with anything you’ll need.”

“That’s good. We could use some help.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is your business here?”

“We have some questions about the castle,” she answered carefully. “I don’t know if your mother will be able to help us, but it can’t hurt to ask…” She trailed off. That, most definitely, was a lie.

“I’m sure she can,” Young Nozel said with confidence. “Are your siblings anyone I would know?”

“I don’t know.” She watched him from the corner of her eye as she took, what she assumed, to be a calculated risk. “Their names are Solid and Nebra Silva.”

Young Nozel’s steps slowed until he came to a stop. 

Noelle frowned. “Nozel?”

He stared ahead, his gaze coming unfixed. The clear, comfortable light in the hall dimmed to a dull grey, as if the sun had set in the midst of a storm.

Noelle looked around, but there were no windows that would have let that sort of light in. The stationary lights in the ceiling had dimmed. They didn’t do that at home. She stepped in front of him and waved her hand. “Nozel…?”

Faintly, as if behind a closed door, a panicked cry reached her ears. Noelle spun around, bristling. 

As suddenly as he’d succumbed to his trance, Young Nozel snapped back. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” Noelle murmured.

“I think it’s coming from the courtyard.” He started forward at a speed walk. Noelle rushed after him.

* * *

Solid’s grimoire rose from his satchel, pages aglow. “Water Magic: Sea Serpent Twine!”

A water serpent erupted from Solid’s magic, slamming into the tiny fabricated forms of him and Nebra. It carried them across the courtyard in a spiraling, serpentine route. The serpent’s jaws were easily big enough to swallow them both whole, but in the moment where they should have slammed down on them, it changed direction, dropping the kids on their feet and making a sharp turn that took it right back to Solid. Nebra leapt out of the way as the serpent met Solid’s hastily constructed magic shield. The two spells exploded against each other, dousing the siblings in a burst of water.

As the last of the water soaked the grass around them, the Silvas’ younger counterparts screamed with laughter. Without so much as a drop of water on him, Young Solid turned to the siblings, smiling wide. “Again!”

Solid grimaced. “What the hell…”

“We should have known it wouldn’t be that easy,” Nebra murmured. “It looks like they may have access to all of  _ our _ power and skill.”

“Of all the dopples to get to fight, why did it have to be us as annoying little kids?” Solid grumbled. “Whatever. I’ll flatten them! I don’t care.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun.” Mist collected around Nebra as she readied a spell. “This is all a little creepy for my liking. Mist Magic: Mist Spider Binding Thread.”

A cloud of mist shot toward the children, blotting out Solid’s line of sight to them. Invisible threads wove through the mist. Nebra’s magic twisted and tightened, working to ensnare the children in her web. But as the seconds ticked by, the giggles chiming through the mist didn’t falter. Nebra’s concentrated frown creased into a grimace. “I can’t…!”

“My turn!” Young Nebra’s voice trilled though the mist, suddenly far too close. Like a trap door spider the child leapt into the space between the siblings and twisted the mist around her.

With a sickening jolt, Nebra realized that she was losing control of her spell. She struggled to direct the invisible threads woven throughout the mist as she and Solid darted away. Another water serpent formed at Solid’s side, and he sent it striking at any threads he could sense, but the snake was sliced instead, cut to pieces by the unharmed mist magic. With a strangled gag, he seized up, his ankles drawn together and his neck going stiff. Nebra whirled around to help him, only to be seized by mist threads on all sides. She was stretched prone, suspended in the air by her own rogue spell. The mist parted, thinning to give them a clear view of everywhere that the threads didn’t touch.

“Wow!” Young Solid crowed, bouncing up and down. “Nebra, how did you do that?”

The little girl lifted her chin, expression smug. “I’m very talented. Now you try. Use your magic on that one.”

“Okay!” The toddler spun on his heel and strolled toward Solid, suspended just off the ground by his neck, waist, and ankles. He kept his arms, unbound, laid stiffly at his sides; afraid that if he thrashed too much, the threads around his neck would tighten. His younger self examined him thoughtfully, his tongue poking out from between his lips. “What should I do with him?”

“I just said, use your magic on him.”

The little boy tilted his head, thinking seriously. Then he held out his hands, and magic collected between his palms. “I’m gonna make him a fish!”

Young Nebra eyed him incredulously. “What?... Okay, fine, just do it.”

The ball of water between Young Solid’s hands doubled in size. Its childish, quivering surface grew more stable, until it was smooth, perfectly controlled, and extremely magically dense. With a clumsy flourish, he sent it hurdling toward Solid at low speed. It clung to his head like a raindrop on a leaf, settling into an oval atop his shoulders.

“...Okay, that’s something, I guess,” Young Nebra said, shrugging. “But it’s not very cool-looking.”

Young Solid pouted. “Yes it is!”

Solid glowered at the two, blue eyes dark with growing annoyance.

“It’s very cool,” Nebra indulged. “Now, if you let us down, we can all play something else.”

“Silence, intruder!” Young Solid yelled, jabbing a finger at her. He turned back to Young Nebra. “See? She thinks it’s cool!”

“I just think that you could do better,” Young Nebra said. “Like maybe…” She curled her knuckles to her lip, and lifted her hand. Her grip on the mist threads strengthened, and Nebra felt the last bit of control wrenched away from her. The threads tightened, cutting off the circulation to her hands and feet. Solid squirmed, his face twisting into a grimace. A stream of tiny bubbles rose from his mouth.

“There,” Young Nebra said. “See what I did?”

Young Solid’s lids hung low on his eyes in a cartoonish look of disinterest. “No.”

The little girl glared at him. “Well, then I guess you can’t see nuance.”

Nebra considered with a sinking feeling that they were in a very dangerous spot. Her fingers were already going numb, and Solid was starting to look uneasy. She didn’t know how much longer either of them could afford to be so helpless. She fought to regain control of the spell, but her attempts to snatch it back felt like exactly what they were: grasping at mist. These children could not only mimic their magic; they could control it with no concentration. Even with the kids distracted, she couldn’t weasel her way out of this.

“Solid, Nebra,” she said, “you might not know who we are, but we are guests here. You will get in trouble if you’re caught treating us like this!”

“No, you’re intruders,” Young Solid shot back, scoffing. “We can do whatever we want to you!”

“We are here on your family’s behest,” she insisted. “Here to deliver a message to Lord Nozel. Do you routinely treat guests this way?”

“No, you broke in,” Young Solid insisted.

“I would know if we were expecting guests,” Young Nebra said empirically. “You are lying. That definitely means we can do whatever we want with you.”

“Even if that were true,” Nebra said, “you are not doing very much. I thought you wanted to play? Wouldn’t it be more fun to play hide and seek?”

The children exchanged a thoughtful look. Young Solid examined the courtyard while Young Nebra eyed her older counterpart critically, sizing up the offer. “Are you good at hide and seek?”

Behind the children, Solid struggled against his binds. The stream of bubbles rising from his nose was very quickly dwindling.

“Yes, I’m really good at hide and seek,” Nebra rushed. “I’m the best! You’ll never be able to find me. Let’s play, okay? Come on, I’ll even be It if you want.” 

“I don’t know…” Young Nebra tilted her head, her pink eyes narrowed. “Are you good at being It?”

“Yes! Very good. I could find you all in under five minutes. You can even set a timer. How’s that for a challenge?”

“It’s pretty good…” She tapped her lip, mulling over the idea. “What do you think, Solid? It might be fun to play Hide and Seek with someone who’s actually good at it… if she’s not lying.”

Young Solid giggled in surprise. “Nebra, look!”

Solid’s struggling was getting more frantic. He scrambled to get a grip on the hair-thin mist threads around his neck, now tracing pink marks across his throat. 

“He’s flopping like a fish!” Young Solid cried. “See? I told you I would make him a fish!”

“He does look pretty funny,” Young Nebra admitted, her lips curling into an amused smile.

“Yes, very funny!” Nebra forced a smile. “You know what he’s really good at? Hiding! I bet he’ll make you laugh if we play hide and seek!”

“His face is turning colors!” Young Solid laughed.

Solid’s lips took on a sickly blue. His bound ankles thrashed, setting the threads binding him catching the light in split-second reflections. He clawed at the sphere of water around his head, but his fingers slid off of it like it was made of glass. He caught Nebra’s eye, seized with terror.

“This- This isn’t funny anymore!” Nebra yelled. “Let us go, we’ll play another game!”

“Shush! You’re so annoying!” Young Nebra flicked her wrist at her without a glance, and the threads on her arms and legs grew tighter. Nebra’s shoulders popped and clicked, her limbs pulled to their absolute limits. Droplets of blood trickled down the threads binding her ankles as they sliced through the skin. She gasped, tensing before her shoulders could be pulled from their sockets. This wasn’t how this spell was supposed to work. She’d never been able to make it do this on her own.

Solid’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. His mouth cracked open, blue lips curved into a desperate cry as he tipped his head up. He slammed his hands against the smooth surface of the water magic, each blow weaker and more desperate than the last.

“Stop!” Nebra screamed. Blood peppered her pale skin as she struggled against her restraints. The threads cut into her wrists like twine through butter. “He can’t breathe! Please, let him go, we’ll play anything you want, just let him go!”

The children ignored her. Their laughter rang through the courtyard as they watched Solid’s struggle wind down. His hands fell to his sides. His mouth, opening and closing like a gulping fish, stilled. The last remaining tension in his legs went slack, and his head slumped forward. His grimoire, hovering in the mist beside him, started to lose its lustrous shine.

“ _ SOLID! _ ” Nebra’s shriek cut through their laughter like a gunshot. “You little bastards! You urchins! Let him go!”

Young Solid scurried up to the still form and gave his pants a tug. “Wake up! Keep going!”

“He’s not going to wake up if you don’t stop it!” Tears clung to the corners of Nebra’s eyes. The iron-tight threads binding her sliced away skin as she thrashed with all her might. “You’re going to kill him! Stop!”

The doors from which they’d come creaked open. Two forms made their way into the courtyard. The taller, eying the children with a scathing leer, said, “What are you doing?”

“Big brother!” the children cried in unison. “We were just keeping an eye on these intruders,” Young Nebra declared.

“They’re not intruders.” The duo stopped in the bright light at the center in the courtyard. Nebra stared, mouth open, at Nozel and Noelle; the former not even as old as the latter. “Let them go now.”

The mist evaporated from the courtyard instantly. Nebra fell to her knees, and Solid, suspended by the water encasing his head, hung limply in the air for a moment longer before it disappeared, too. He crumpled to the ground like a soaked ragdoll. His grimoire, inanimate, thumped into the grass beside him.

Noelle rushed to her brother’s side, but Nebra hit the ground running and beat her there. She rolled him onto his back and pressed her ear to his chest. 

“What did you two do?” Young Nozel growled.

The children shrank. While Young Solid looked anywhere but at his brother, Young Nebra mustered up an answer. “We were just playing…”

“You don’t hurt people when you play.”

Nebra tilted Solid’s head up, pinched his nose shut, and pressed her mouth to his, inflating the room left in his lungs that wasn’t full of water. Then she pressed her hands to his chest, counting under her breath to keep track of compressions. Noelle watched in stunned silence as she repeated the set, again, and again, and again. The corners of his grimoire started to dissolve.

All the while, the Little Silvas kept on arguing.

“They broke into the castle!” Young Solid insisted. “They’re bad!”

“They’re not supposed to be here!” Young Nebra agreed.

“Yes, they are,” Young Nozel said shortly. “Obviously, they’re Silvas. Can’t you tell that they look like us?”

“How were we supposed to know that? You’re supposed to tell me these things!” Young Nebra whined.

“You’re not entitled to every detail that transpires here, Nebra. And you are expected to leave our guests intact.”

“But they're  _ not _ guests!” Young Solid stomped his foot, emphatic. “They broke in! I saw it!”

Nebra’s shoulders hunched as she pressed her palm into her brother’s chest, thirty times in rapid succession. Both she and Noelle cringed when they heard a snap, but she didn’t falter. “Come on… Wake up! Start breathing!”

“They are here to see me and Mother,” Young Nozel said firmly. “You should have gotten me when you found them.”

The children grew quiet, pouting at the ground. Young Nebra pressed her curled fingers to her lip. “...Yeah, they did say that.”

“And you ignored them. You are not the head of House Silva, Nebra! You don’t get to do whatever you want!”

A low gurgle rumbled from Solid’s airway as Nebra pulled back from her fifth round of mouth-to-mouth. She rolled him on his side, but the water streaming from his lips didn’t amount to more than spit. 

“Let me,” Noelle breathed, leaning forward. She aimed her wand at Solid’s mouth and stretched her will down his throat, grasping at the water filling his lungs. But her magic was as shaky as her hands. She couldn’t get a grip on it.

Nebra’s eyes bugged as the necrotic crawl of Solid’s grimoire stretched across the cover. “Noelle, if you can’t do it, let me keep working!”

“I can! I can do it!”

“We were just trying to protect the family,” Young Nebra mumbled.

“You’ve failed. Look what you did!” Young Nozel gestured to the panicking sisters. “Don’t you have any better self control than this? It is embarrassing. You should be ashamed.”

“Noelle!” Nebra screamed.

“I’ve got it!” She seized the magic in his lungs in a sudden, iron grasp, and wrenched it out. Water flooded onto the grass, and Solid animated with a gasp that gave way to strangled coughs. His sisters helped him sit upright, Noelle propping him up by the shoulders and Nebra rubbing his back.

Young Nozel turned to face them, his expression softening with sympathy. “I am very sorry. Are you alright?”

Like a frightened stray standing over a puppy, Nebra wrapped her arms around her brother and hunched over him. The two shrank from the teenaged boy, eyes wide. When it was clear that neither of them would be their mouthpiece, Noelle wiped her eyes and answered, “Don’t let them touch my siblings again.”

“I won’t.” He turned to the children, and face growing stern again, he pointed to the fountain. “Sit on the fountain.”

The children hurried to the fountain’s edge.

“I really am sorry.” He took a few tentative steps toward the siblings. “They take things way too far sometimes.”

“They almost killed him!” Nebra snarled, pulling Solid closer.

“They got out of hand. They’re just children, they don’t know their own strength.”

Nebra fixed him with a look that could have cut him to pieces. “Noelle, what were you doing with that thing?” she demanded, turning her venomous gaze to her little sister.

“I ran into him in the bedroom corridor,” she stammered. “He said that he could-”

“Are you so short-sighted that you could be easily distracted by another… whatever these children are? Did you forget what we’re here for?”

“No!”

“Then why didn’t you leave it where you found it? You should have followed us!”

“I-- I would have, but…” Noelle shrank. Her words petered out in the shadow of her sister’s glare.

“Hold on. This is not Lady Noelle’s fault.” Young Nozel stepped into the grass, putting his hands up. “I pulled her aside because I thought she needed help. I kept her from finding you immediately. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Nebra’s gaze turned cutting once again, making him squirm. When he was intimidated into looking away, she turned back to Noelle. “Did he do anything to you?”

Noelle bridled. “No! We just talked.”

“About what?”

“About… his family.” She tripped over the words, at a loss of how to make them sound genuine. “He thinks that his mother would be able to help us.”

Nebra stiffened, and Solid let out an incredulous wheeze.

“I can take you to her right away,” Young Nozel offered.

“Maybe our Nozel is with her,” Noelle whispered.

Solid, expression lost, looked to Nebra. With a strained sigh, she ran her hand down her face, only to find it smeared with blood. “Shit!... I guess we don’t have any better options, do we?”

Young Nozel pulled a kerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. She flinched as if he lifted his hand to her, but catching herself, she plucked it out of his hand. After a quick examination, she deemed it safe enough to swab her face and dab at her bleeding wrists and ankles. Solid, clutching his ribs, pushed himself out of Nebra’s lap and into a sit. He peeled his grimoire out of the mud.

Noelle pawed through the ruffles of her skirt until she found a clean edge. She ripped off one large strip and offered it to her sister. Reluctantly, Nebra plucked it from her hand. After failing to tie it around her wrist, Noelle gently took it from her and tied the knot herself. Without meeting her sister’s eyes, Nebra ripped a couple strips of fabric from her own skirt. The sisters got to work bandaging up Nebra’s other three wounds. With Nebra’s wounds covered, Noelle hopped to her feet, and one by one, she offered her siblings her hands. They each reluctantly accepted the help, deciding that they risked too much indignity if their injuries left them unable to rise on their own. Soaked to the skin, muddied, bloodied, and bruised, they turned warily toward their teenaged guide.

“What about us?” Young Solid called, swinging his legs anxiously from the fountain.

“Go to your rooms until someone calls for you,” Young Nozel instructed. “If I look for you and don’t find you there, you will regret it.”

Heads bowed, the children hopped off the fountain and scurried through the open door. Once they’d passed, Young Nozel motioned the trio to follow, and he stepped out of the courtyard as well. They fell in step several paces behind him.

Nebra and Solid, limping, bleeding, dripping, surrounded Noelle like wolves circling a kill. 

“What is he talking about? What does he want?” Nebra whispered.

“Where is he taking us?” Solid rasped.

“What? He told you that,” Noelle stammered.

“The children versions of us were out for blood. We would be idiots to trust him, Noelle,” Nebra hissed.

“He doesn’t seem to want anything but to help,” she murmured. “He hasn’t done anything strange. He’s just Nozel, but fifteen.”

“So you’re an idiot,” Solid growled. 

“Do you really think that those children were just acting like younger versions of us?” Nebra pressed. “You couldn’t see that there was something wrong with them?”

“I...” Noelle lowered her eyes.

“What? Do you?” Solid demanded, aghast.

“But, Solid-”

He wrapped an arm around his broken ribs, but did not let them stop him from hissing more vitriol in his sister’s face. “You do? You’re serious!?”

“You did that to me when we were kids, Solid,” she murmured. “You trapped me in your magic until I passed out. And Nebra watched. Don’t you remember?”

Nebra and Solid faltered, thrown by the accusation. As they fell a step behind Noelle, they were hit in swift succession by realization, and then embarrassment. Solid dropped his gaze to the floor, succumbing to an uneasiness he’d never been forced to face. He rubbed the angry red lines criss-crossing his throat.

“That is not Nozel,” Nebra declared. “It is a thing that this place made to keep us from finding Nozel. Nozel was not like this at that age. It doesn’t act like him.”

“...Then what do you want to do?” Noelle asked, frowning at her. “Fight him?”

Nebra and Solid looked grim. That was a good question. With both of them injured, and now knowing that these forgeries were extremely powerful, fighting anything resembling their older brother did not seem like a good idea.

Noelle’s gaze trailed to the teenaged boy leading them. “Maybe big brother is with Mother.”

“...That’s a possibility,” Nebra murmured.

“If he’s not,” Solid muttered, “then we’ll be stuck in a room with a fake Nozel  _ and _ a fake Mother.”

The siblings descended into silence. A horror, quiet and slow, creeped up on them: They were out of choices. No matter what they did now, they were trapped.

Scrambling to fill the silence before it got too long, Noelle cleared her throat. “So, Nozel, where is, um, Lady Acier?”

“She’s probably on the Veranda,” he replied.

“The Veranda?” Solid whispered. “We don’t have a veranda.”

“We used to have one,” Nebra muttered. “It suffered termite damage and was torn down when you two were still toddlers.”

“Did, um.” Noelle rubbed the back of her neck. “Did Mother like to sit out there?”

“Yes,” her sister sighed, curling her fingers around her bleeding wrists. “It was one of her favorite places.”

“Did Nozel sit with her out there?”

“Often.”

Noelle perked up. This seemed like good news; it supported their suspicions about his whereabouts. But the looks on her siblings’ faces were getting heavier with dread with each step they took. Her budding smile chased off, she looked away.

A set of French doors on the east wall greeted them where Solid and Noelle could remember none at home. Young Nozel pushed them open, and a cool spring breeze billowed into the castle. Sitting in a chair pulled into the light, her back to the door, was a silver-haired woman.

Solid seized up the moment he laid eyes on her. His sisters, a step ahead of him, stopped and looked back. “Solid?” Nebra asked.

“No. No, I can’t. I’m not going any farther.” He shook his head and stepped back, pressing his hands to his face. “I can’t do it.”

“Solid, it’s just an illusion,” Nebra murmured, extending a hand.

“I don’t care!” He slapped it away, smearing blood on the back of his hand. “I don’t want to see her! I’m staying right here! You two go talk to her. I’m staying here.”

Nebra stepped away from him, her face falling. She started to speak, and then stopped, unable to think up any words of encouragement.

Noelle felt that uncomfortable, twisting sympathy that often plagued her when it came to her siblings; because she saw resolve in her sister, but also the same deep fear that Solid was wearing so loudly. Foreign to her, and yet always present in her siblings’ faces when they looked upon the big portrait in the main hall. “If you don’t want to come, I’ll go by myself,” she offered. “I don’t mind.”

Nebra’s eyebrows rose. Her mouth opened, a dismission ready, but when she glanced out the doors again, that unmistakable fear darkened her face. She curled her fingers to her lip, torn. “You go ahead and learn what you can. Solid and I will keep a close eye on our surroundings.”

She smiled and nodded. Then, leaving them within the castle, she stepped onto the veranda.

Young Nozel waited halfway across the veranda for her. “They’re not coming?” he asked, although he didn’t sound disappointed.

“They’re shy,” Noelle replied. “They’ll come if they get their nerve up.”

Young Nozel flashed her a look that told her that ‘shy’ wasn’t the word he would use to describe them, but he kept the thought to himself. Stopping a few paces from the occupied chair, he said, “Mother?”

“I thought I heard someone coming up behind me.” The woman smiled over her shoulder, her amethyst eyes, pale skin, and silver hair catching the sun like polished jewelry. A sunhat laid over her chest. She tapped the end poking into the air, tipping it back. “Look who just woke up.”

Blinking up at them from under the hat was a round-faced, pink-eyed baby. Her mouth stretched open in a wide yawn, and then, catching sight of Young Nozel, she reached a hand out toward him.

“No one has to wonder who your favorite big brother is,” the woman chuckled, pinching the baby’s cheek.

Noelle stiffened. Solid and Nebra gaped.

“Mother, this is Lady Noelle Silva,” Nozel said, gesturing to his sister. “She and her siblings have paid us a visit.”

“Oh, really? Let me rise to the occasion.” She uncrossed her long legs and rose to her feet.

Despite everything that she was prepared for, Noelle’s mouth still fell open. Acier Silva was a woman that truly shined like polished steel. She was tall; easily as tall as Nozel at his adult height, with eyes the same color as his, and they were just as striking despite their soft shape. Her magic power, which radiated off her like the heat of a fire, was nothing compared to Noelle’s or any of her siblings’; Nozel’s came the closest, but even mercury didn’t have the sharpness, and especially not the heat, of steel. She struck Noelle as the kind of woman who could make someone like Yami tremble; no doubt, Meroeoleona had learned the skill from her. And she had Noelle fixed with a look like she could see right through her.

“Oh, Noelle. It’s so nice to see you.” She flashed her a wide, warm smile. “What can I do for you?”

Noelle drew a blank. She understood now why her siblings had not wanted to face this woman. She thought that only knowing her mother as an image on the wall would make this simple for her; this was, after all, only an illusion, just another inanimate portrait. But there was nothing artificial about her. From the way she moved to the way her magic felt, Noelle could not shake the feeling that she was standing in front of her real, living mother. And as desperate as she’d always been to know what that felt like, as amazing as it was to be standing in front of her now, to actually have it happen was deeply, soul-shakingly wrong.

“I…” She lowered her eyes and swallowed hard, struggling to fix a thought amid her chaotic mind. “I was wondering if you could, um… W-We-”

“You’re going to have to speak more clearly,” Acier chided. She shifted Baby Noelle to her hip and curled her fingers to her lip, gently amused. “I don’t have all day.”

“I wanted to know if... If you knew where I could find my brother.”

The woman tilted her head. Her eyes trailed to the doorway, and she gestured to Solid with an open hand. “I see him right there.”

Solid froze like a scared rabbit.

“Not that one,” Noelle rushed. She spared Young Nozel a side glance, but finding that he was watching her closely, she couldn’t look at him. “My other brother.”

“Your  _ other _ brother? You don’t have another brother, as far as I know.”

Noelle’s mouth opened in protest, but she couldn’t form the right words. She knew that not to be true; she  _ knew _ she had another brother. But she couldn’t muster up an argument against the great steel princess, her mother, Acier Silva. Trying to made a foggy spot form in her head.

Acier’s friendly smile didn’t falter. She shifted Baby Noelle into Nozel’s arms and said, “Nozel, why don’t you and Noelle…  _ and _ Noelle go for a walk?” She pointed a finger at Nebra and Solid. “I want to speak to those two alone.”

All the color drained from their faces.

The baby happily flapped her lips as Young Nozel wrapped his arms around her and plucked her from her mother’s arms. He nodded and gestured to Noelle to follow him through the double doors, ignoring Nebra and Solid’s desperate stares as he passed.

Noelle stood there, her stance wide and uncertain as she tried to decide what to do. Young Nozel was passive, definitive; he never questioned the order, and that made her feel foolish for doing just that. But she wasn’t supposed to be walking around with him. She was supposed to talk to Acier so that Solid and Nebra didn’t have to. She needed to be here for them. She needed to stay here.

“Go on, Noelle.” Acier patted her on the head. “I’ll just be a couple minutes.”

She looked to Nebra and Solid. The two stood in the doorway, cowering, their pale faces twisted with dread, pleading. They didn’t want her to go. She didn’t know if they could handle it if she went.

Acier’s fingers tightened around her head. Her voice dropped, low, authoritative. “Go.”

Noelle shrank with the word. When Acier released her, she slunk into the castle. Eyes on the floor, she came to Young Nozel’s side. He led her down the hall.

Solid and Nebra watched her go, terror twisting in their guts until it threatened to make them wretch. Solid’s fingers curled into Nebra’s sleeve with a white-knuckle grip. Nebra pressed her fingers against her lip until it was numb.

“Come here, you two.”

The two huddled together, their backs to the door. 

“I said come here.”

Jaw clenched until her head hurt, Nebra turned around. The moment she met the woman’s amethyst gaze, she was as powerless to refuse her orders as she’d been at eight years old. Moving like her sandals were made of concrete, she crossed the length of the veranda. Solid tried to stop her; he planted his feet and leaned away, but with a cracked rib, he didn’t have the strength to fight. When she pulled against him, she pulled him along.

Their mother’s gaze trailed between the two of them, and she let out a chuckle. “Look at you; getting into trouble as always. You didn’t exactly get what you bargained for when you wandered in here, did you?”

Nebra closed her eyes and turned away. Solid stared unblinkingly at the floor.

Acier slowly extended her hand, and catching Nebra by the chin, she turned her face toward hers. “Nebra. My beauty. Open your eyes. Let me see them.”

Nebra’s heart sank to her stomach. Her eyes fluttered open, bleary and unfixed. She wanted anything but to let her vision fall on the face gazing lovingly down on her. But she couldn’t help it. Her mother filled her vision, and she couldn’t look away.

“You’re even more gorgeous than I dreamed you’d be when you were little. Even like this.” Acier rubbed her thumb against Nebra’s cheek, wiping away a red smear. “If only you’d put your cleverness to use, you wouldn’t have blood on your face.”

Silent tears spilled down Nebra’s cheeks. She felt like she was suffocating, so transfixed in the sensation of being held by her mother that she feared to take a full breath, lest the illusion shatter.

“Oh, stop that. You’re way too old to cry.” She cupped her cheeks and wiped away her tears, her touch soft as silk. “You should know better. You’re going to get your brother started. Oh, too late.”

Solid’s eyes were still downcast, unblinking, as tears streamed down his nose and dripped to the floor. He was pressed against Nebra’s back, his shoulders hunched low as he trembled with each breath.

“Solid.” When Acier caught him by the shoulder, he didn’t fight her. She pulled him against her and stroked his bangs. “My poor baby. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Solid’s composure shattered. The paralytic terror of facing a shadow of his mother plunged from his mind. He was consumed by the overwhelming relief and grief of being in the arms of a mother he’d thought he’d never see again. He slumped against her, sobbing into her shoulder. His arms caught her in a hug that sucked a pained breath from him. But he squeezed her tight, letting his chest throb so hard that he couldn’t breathe.

Acier wrapped her arm around Nebra, pulling her close, too. Nebra’s eyes squeezed shut, but that was the only defense she could put up against her mother’s embrace. She leaned her head against her shoulder, letting her tears soak into the soft white fabric of her dress. She could feel the knowledge of this being an illusion rapidly dissolving from her mind, but she was helpless to fight it. She didn’t want to pull away, and within seconds, she’d forgotten why she ever would.

“I’m sure this must be hard for you; Nozel disappears, and when you go looking for him, you find me, of all things,” she murmured, running her fingers through their hair. “If I could have warned you, I would have. But it’s not like I knew that you were coming.”

She paused, her hands coming to rest on the back of their necks. Her only answers were muffled sniffles.

“Listen carefully. I want to spend time with you, too. But this is Nozel’s time. This place is dangerous for the rest of you. You and Noelle need to go.”

Nebra opened her eyes, sucking in a short, staggered breath. “What?”

“You need to go. All three of you. But you don’t have to stay away.” Acier smiled at her. “Give me a couple days with your big brother, and then come back. I’ll make time for each of you, one by one. You can figure out who’s next once you go.”

Nebra’s tear-soaked eyes narrowed. She felt like a heavy fog had fallen over her mind, and her confusion at the statement was dulled to a frightened despair.

“No!” Solid gasped. “You’re right here! I won’t let you disappear again!”

Acier closed her eyes, a gentle impatience settling over her face. “You’re being childish. I won’t go anywhere. You just need to wait your turn.”

He shook his head. “I won’t leave!”

“Why can’t we stay?” Nebra whispered. “Nozel wouldn’t mind…”

“Nozel isn’t asking.  _ I’m _ telling you. You need to go, and in a few days’ time, come back. It’ll be safer for you then.”

“But what if we forget?” Nebra quaked. “Mother, everyone’s forgetting!” 

She smirked. “You wouldn’t forget about me, would you? So what’s the harm?”

“But it’s been so long,” Solid rasped.

“Is a few days really that much longer to wait if you know I’ll be here?”

Nebra curled her fingers to her lip and straightened. This didn’t make sense. But she couldn’t figure out what angle of it was the one that was out of place. Why should Nozel get her to himself for days at a time? That was never what it was like when they were kids. And why did they have to leave the castle for it? 

“Mother.” Solid sniffle and wiped his face. His voice, still fragile from tears, was convicted. “It’s too long. Please don’t make us go.”

Acier grew quiet, her lips forming a thin, hard line. “I am not going to tell you again.”

Solid’s head shot up. Upon seeing his mother’s face, his fight fizzled into childlike terror.

Nebra grabbed her brother’s hand and stepped back. “Mother…?”

Her grimoire, perched on the table beside her chair, rose to meet her. “I warned you that this place was dangerous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very special shout out to BeamMeUpCas's The Boy Who Played with Water, which inspired Solid's little mishap. A fantastic fic, I cannot recommend it enough. While this story doesn't take its events word-for-word, the inciting action is obviously what Noelle is referring to.
> 
> Have I got you squirming?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noelle finds Nozel, Nozel finds the magic chest, and they find Acier. Nebra and Solid are along for the ride, and the ride isn't a comfortable one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hhhh.... This chapter contains what I think are the strongest and weakest scenes of this whole story. They took me a lot of time, and I worked very hard on them, but honestly, both are a little cliched. I hope they hit the way they're supposed to. Hopefully I'm my own worst critic!
> 
> Shelter by Porter Robinson has been on repeat in my head for the last several days. If you're the type who can read while listening to music (unlike me), I highly recommend putting it on loop for the second half of this chapter.

Noelle clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palm. Her heart hammered. Her stomach twisted. She’d done the wrong thing. She wanted to turn around and run the other way, but the same fear that had driven her off in the first place kept her at Young Nozel’s side: She didn’t want to make her mother mad.

The feeling crept up on her like a spider on her back; knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that that woman was  _ not _ her mother, but being unable to act on it, because something in her head so loudly screamed that  _ she was. _ The fear she felt was as real as if she’d been disciplined by Acier Silva for the last seventeen years; a scenario that swiftly and silently wormed its way into her memories as she stood there before her. The reality of her life and this fake memory were at a stalemate, and she was helpless to pick a side.

Young Nozel eyed her in short side glances, but he let Baby Noelle take up most of his attention, babbling and grabbing at his face. When they’d walked for a few minutes, he finally spoke up. “She can be intimidating, can’t she?”

“Yeah,” Noelle breathed.

“I thought you said you hadn’t met her before…?”

She didn’t answer.

Young Nozel looked to the floor. He shifted his grip on the baby. “I wonder what she wants to talk to your brother and sister about.”

Noelle swallowed hard. “Me, too.”

An uneasy silence fell between them. Nozel’s eyes trailed back to the baby, who was trying to get a grip on his bangs. “Noelle is in a good mood today.” He pulled her hand away from his face and said, “Mother thinks that she’ll have water magic. That makes me the only one of my siblings to have inherited her metal attribute.”

His words hit her ears like she was standing too close to a speaker to hear the sound clearly. But the thoughts in her head only sounded like more noise, and she needed something to concentrate on. At least she knew what he said was true. She tried to focus on it. “Yeah?”

He hummed a yes. “It’s a little disappointing, I’ll admit. I wish one of them had a metal affinity. But we all have fluid magic, so I suppose I’ll make do.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, combing her pigtail over her shoulder. “Yeah, I bet you will.”

Nozel frowned, unsure how to take the comment. He ran his fingers through the baby’s short silver hair as he tried to decide if he needed to keep this conversation going. “Are you and your siblings close?”

“Not really.” She traced patterns in the floor’s marble tiles with her eyes, trying to still the despondent pounding of her heart. “I think it would be nice to be. But they don’t like me.”

Baby Noelle managed to get a grip on Young Nozel’s hair. He let her yank his head sideways as he fixed Noelle with a pitying frown. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not good at controlling my magic. And I’m not very brave. I mess up a lot and they can’t count on me.” Pressure built behind her eyes. If she kept going on like this, she would cry.

“But you were the one who talked to my mother. You seem pretty accountable to me.”

“But I…” She wrapped her fingers around her hair. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “I should have stayed with them. They didn’t want me to go.”

“We won’t be gone for long. They’ll be fine.”

Tears spilled down Noelle’s cheeks. She pressed her hands to her face and shuddered, shaken by a silent sob. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop. They flooded her hands, soaking the soft white fabric of her sleeves until it clung to her thin wrists. They’d needed her. They’d needed her and she left them there. She was too afraid of the figment of a woman she never met to be there when Solid and Nebra needed her, and she was too afraid to go back now.

Young Nozel’s eyes widened. Shifting nervously on his feet, he looked around. When he’d decided on a destination, he took Noelle by the elbow and led her into a room several doors down. A sunlit sitting room opened up to them; the windows pulled open and the colors of the room washed out to soothing pastels. Young Nozel guided Noelle to the couch and offered her a box of tissues set atop the end table.

Noelle accepted the box awkwardly. She set it in her lap and pulled out several tissues, which she used to pad her face. But they didn’t help her stop crying; they soaked through in seconds, and she was forced to pull more and more, until her face was buried in a cushion of soggy tissues. Young Nozel watched her helplessly until, giving in to his uselessness, he backed into the armchair beside the couch. In uncomfortable silence, he let Noelle cry.

Her energy ran out before her tears did. Shame was exhausting, and it didn’t take long before she was burnt out, despite her eyes dribbling like a leaking faucet. At least now she was too exhausted to be properly upset. All she had left was quiet misery. She missed Nozel. She missed him so much that it hurt. He wouldn’t have let this happen. He would have forced her to stay there for Solid and Nebra. And he would be there, too. She knew that Mother’s death had hurt him as much as it had hurt them-- maybe even more, when he knew the real reason that she died --but she was sure that he would not have been tricked by an illusion. He wouldn’t have let the three of them crumble like this.

“Are you alright?” Young Nozel murmured.

“I miss my brother.”

The boy straightened, fixing her with an uncomfortable grimace. He shifted his grip on Baby Noelle, whose big pink eyes were fixed intensely on the crying girl. “He’s just down the hall...”

“Not that brother. My other brother.” Noelle’s streaming eyes fell dully on the floor. “...One time, when I was little, Solid and Nebra made me play hide and seek in the tulip garden. I was so little that I couldn’t see over the tops of the flowers. They told me that I was It, and I had to find them. I spent hours… it felt like hours… looking for them. But I couldn’t find them anywhere. I kept running and calling, and all I could find was more tulips. The garden seemed to go on forever. I couldn’t even find the walking path. I searched for so long that the sun started to set, and I thought that I’d be lost there forever. I curled up in the dirt and cried. 

“Then big brother appeared in front of me. I mean, he probably just heard me crying and followed the sound, but it seemed like he descended from the sky to me. He picked me up and he-- he never let me hug him, he didn’t even like me to touch him --but he let me cling to his neck while he carried me inside.” She drew in a long, shaky breath, and dabbed at her eyes. “I don’t really have any good memories of my siblings, but when he was holding me, I knew I was safe. He was mad that I hadn’t been able to find my way out, and that I’d just given up, and that I’d gotten my clothes dirty, but I knew that nothing bad would happen to me while he was holding me, no matter how mad he got. That’s what he would do here. He’d be mad at me, because I couldn’t just do what I needed to do, but he’d make sure we were safe. I wish he was here.” Noelle slumped against the couch. She was out of resolve, and she was out of energy. She just wanted to go to sleep and wake up in a world where everything was as it should be.

“I… remember that.”

She looked up. Young Nozel’s eyes were fixed on a spot on the floor, his brow furrowed. “I remember that… finding Noelle in the rose garden.”

The baby was now watching his face very carefully.

Noelle pushed herself upright. “You… do?”

The sunlight spilling through the windows dimmed like a storm was rolling through. The room descended into deep shades of gray and brown. Baby Noelle let out a nervous whine and squirmed in her brother’s arms, but Nozel, still staring at the floor, ignored her.

“Solid and Nebra said, ‘She’s hiding.’” He spoke slowly and softly, like he was afraid that someone would overhear him. “She missed lunch. No one could find her. I heard her crying in the garden…”

Noelle’s eyes widened. She looked to the window, but instead of a sky full of dark clouds, all she saw was gray. The scenery that should have sat outside the window was gone. There was nothing; a sallow void.

“She’d flattened the tulips around her; broken them at the stem. She’d killed them, laying on them like that… They wouldn't regrow. But I couldn’t yell at her because she was crying so hard, and she clung to me so tightly that I couldn’t get her off…”

“That… That was me.” She leaned forward, hands on her knees. “Nozel, that was me! I was-- I was four when that happened!”

He pulled Baby Noelle against him and leaned forward, propping his head up on his hand. “But Noelle is a baby.”

“No, I--” She stopped herself. Whatever was happening here, she didn’t want to jump on it too quickly. She raked her memory for other tiny moments of relief from her childhood, but they were so hard to find among the miserable slog. “D-Do you remember when you fell asleep in the music room reading a book, and I crawled under your arm? I fell asleep. When I woke up you were still holding me, and reading your book--”

“I missed dinner because of that,” Young Nozel murmured. His face twisted with the memory, as if it was drawn out of him through pain.

Baby Noelle, pressed against his chest, struggled and whined.

“Yeah!” A nervous sort of hope pushed a giggle out of her. This was him. He remembered. This was  _ her _ Nozel! “We ate dinner by ourselves, because Solid and Nebra were already done. And you told me to never do that again.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I mean…” His eyes narrowed. “Why would I say that? When did that happen?... Noelle is a baby.”

“And there was that time…” She struggled for another memory. The void outside the window darken. “There was that time at the royal ball where Nebra spilled wine on my dress, and I was going to leave, but you gave me your cape to wear so I could stay, because I was having a really fun time. And- And I saw you watching me, and I thought you were mad--”

Baby Noelle let out a loud, long wail. Young Nozel squeezed his eyes shut and hunched forward, ignoring her cries. The pitch of the window outside reached an ugly dark brown.

Noelle jumped to her feet, wiping her eyes frantically. “Do you remember? Big brother? That was you! That was me!”

“NO!” 

The window shattered, exploding inward with a force that sent glass far into the room. Noelle cried out and ducked, and the baby’s wails reached an ear-piercing shriek. Young Nozel rose from the couch, the baby hugged to his side, and staggered from the room.

“Nozel!” Noelle followed him out, glass crunching under her sandals. She nearly tackled him outside the room, and catching him by the shoulders, she shook him. “It’s me, big brother!  _ I’m _ Noelle! Wake up! You have to remember!”

“No!” He shoved her away and ran. The baby he clutched in his arms screamed as he disappeared down the hall.

Noelle darted after him. The walls shifted around her: shortening, darkening. The angles of turns rapidly warped and she could feel the halls’ distance changing underfoot. The whole castle was in an upheaval. She blinked furiously, forcing her eyes to adjust to the changing light, as she raced after the boy. 

The angle of the hall shifted under their feet, and when Noelle caught up to him, they both slammed into a suddenly close wall. Nozel pressed himself against it as if his best chance at escape was phasing through, but Noelle caught him by the shoulders, and this time, she wasn’t going to let go. “Do you know who I am? Big brother, I need you to remember!”

“No!” Hugging the screaming baby to his chest, he lobbed a glob of mercury at her. But the attack hit with little more force than a cuff to the head. “Let me go! I don’t want to remember!”

“We need you!” she screamed. “Help us!”

“Noelle, I can’t!” 

“Remember us, Nozel! We need you to remember us!”

“I don’t want to!” He clutched her wrist and fixed her with a desperate, panicked look. “Please, don’t make me.”

She flinched, hurt. As her grip loosened she murmured, “Why not?”

Nozel sank to the ground, his shoulders slipping out of her hold. He curled in on himself, hugging the baby close as her cries petered into whimpers. “It can’t be true. Noelle is a baby.”

“I’m  _ not _ a baby, Nozel.” The lights in the hall were dimming; soon, they would be plunged into darkness. She lowered herself onto her haunches and tried to catch his eye.

But his head was buried in his knees now. “Yes, she is. She has to be. She  _ has _ to.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer. He curled still farther in on himself and shook his head. Baby Noelle’s cries had gone silent.

“Please,” Noelle whispered. “We need you, big brother. Why do you want me to be a baby?”

“Because if she’s… if  _ you’re _ not, then…”

The last of the lights in the hall went out. The darkness around them felt uncomfortably close; perhaps the hall was narrowing, or the ceiling was lowering, but it was impossible to know in the dark. A door directly behind Nozel appeared out of the darkness. It creaked open a few inches. Warm afternoon sunlight pooled out, sending a column of light painting the black hall. Inside, a weak voice called Nozel’s name.

He went rigid, his shoulders shaking with a faint tremor. Again, he shook his head against his knees, ruffling his bangs. “She’s a baby,” he whispered, voice as thin and brittle as dried straw.

Noelle, bathed in the light from the cracked door, reached out a hand. It found his shaking shoulder. “Nozel, I’m not.”

“Please.” His voice was so soft that Noelle could hardly hear him. “I don’t want to remember. I don’t have to remember here.”

“Remember what?” Noelle whispered.

Again, someone within the room at his back called his name. Nozel cringed like he’d been hit.

Noelle eyed the light streaming out of the door. It was not yet open enough for her to see anything inside, but the voice had a strange familiarity that made her draw closer to her young brother. “I’ll help you through whatever you’re afraid of. But I need you to remember. Please. Nebra and Solid and I can’t do this without you.  _ Please _ remember. I’ll be here for you.”

“You’re not supposed to have to help me like that,” he quaked.

“But I will,” she said firmly. “Remember. I’ll be here.”

His name echoed from within the room for a third time.

He let out a long, shaking breath. The tension left his shoulders. He got to his feet and turned around. He was smaller, younger now. The door creaked open. The baby was silent in his arms. Noelle, rising to her feet, peered over his shoulder and into the room.

The dreamlike colors and shapes of the hall did not touch the inside of the room. A dull, perfectly normal light lit it through the open windows. A soft breeze carried the smell of flowers and milk all around the room. Daisies, peonies, and hydrangeas adorned every surface: the tea table set by the window, the dresser, the vanity, the windowsill, the divan, the night stand. The bed was the only surface in the room untouched by flowers, and in it, propped up by a mountain of pillows, was Acier Silva.

Her eyes, heavy with a weariness that reached far deeper than her body, fixed on Nozel. Inky black markings snaked up her neck from beneath her clothes, marring her pale skin with necrotic darkness that reached all the way up to her hairline in mottled patches. On the nightstand beside the bed, her grimoire’s shining silver cover was subject to the same dark markings. Her chest rose and fell in short, pained breaths. Her pale lips curved into a soft smile, and with a weak hand, partially blackened and withered, she beckoned him inside.

Nozel stood, unmoving, his eyes fixed on her without seeing her. Recognizing the stillness of terror, Noelle stepped up to him and put her hand on his back. She flashed him a reassuring smile, and gave him a gentle push.

He stepped through the threshold. The baby in his arms, once a young toddler, was now a newborn, her eyes closed in peaceful slumber. Upon reaching his mother’s bedside, he held the baby out to her.

But she shook her head. “No, you hold her. I don’t think I’ll be able to for much longer. Sit with me.”

Stiffly, Nozel pulled up a chair beside her. With the baby held close, he leaned against the bed, his eyes trained intensely on his mother.

Acier lifted her hand. Slowly, unsteadily, she maneuvered it around Nozel’s head and pulled him closer. She laid a kiss on his forehead and stroked his hair. “I think this is it for me, Nozel.”

“Please don’t go,” he rasped.

“We’ve been over this. Don’t make me repeat myself.” Her hand fell to the bed, fingers curling softly around his. “You said you wouldn’t cry. Take care of your brother and sisters. Protect them for me. Be brave. Okay?”

Nozel swallowed hard. He nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” Her voice, growing softer with each word, barely reached a whisper. Her eyes squeezed shut, the softness of her face twisting with pain that she finally gave in to.

Nozel’s grip on her hand tightened. For just a moment, her long, pale fingers tightened around his. And then they unfurled, her hand going limp. Beside Nozel, her grimoire was consumed by blackness. It crumbled into ash and vanished.

Nozel sat for a long minute, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. Then he rose from the chair. The light faded from the room as night came, and he vanished into the complete darkness with everything else. But it didn’t last; the sun came up on the room, now vacant of flowers, vacant of Acier. The only flowers that remained were in Nozel’s hands: a bouquet of white lilies. The sun set again.

And again, and again, and each time, something in the room changed: the bedsheets were different, the furniture was moved around, the curtains were a different color, the objects on the vanity had vanished. On the second day, Nozel’s hands were empty. And each day after, the room cleared out; any signs of a person once living there vanished. But after many days, the changes slowed, until the only visible difference each day was the accumulation of dust along the surfaces of the furniture. The flowers were gone. The curtains stayed drawn. There were no trinkets on the night stand or vanity anymore.

Then one day, the sun rose to a small lump beneath the comforter. Nozel, who had been so still he’d looked like a fixture, animated. His hand stretched toward the blankets and pulled them away. Beneath laid a wooden chest with an unturned key in its lock. He picked it up and turned around.

Noelle watched, tears flooding her eyes, as her brother held the chest between his hands and stepped into the hall. The sun set, casting his shadow all the way to the ceiling. Now, he stood at his full height, grown. He turned to Noelle, and she saw something in his face that she had never seen before: tears, rolling down his cheeks.

Noelle took a step closer and wrapped her arms around him. “You can cry if you want to.”

Slowly, Nozel’s arms enveloped her in a tight hug. He pressed his forehead to hers, and he let himself sob.

* * *

Mist filled the narrow corridor, thickening the air to the point of blindness. A massive bullet of water shot through it, ripping the paint off the walls as it tore down the hall. The mist swallowed it whole, and its impact was lost in the fog, save for the sound of a crash.

Nebra and Solid raced down the hall on a board of water. All around them, the halls twisted and stretched; one moment too long, curving, bloated, and the next throwing a wall at them, the ceiling sinking low, the shadows too long. They took a corner so sharp that they were parallel with the wall, and when the hall suddenly narrowed, the board caught, sending them sprawling. Solid let out a strangled gasp as he landed on his side, the pain in his ribs spiking and knocking the wind out of him. He clutched his side and struggled to rise, sucking in short labored breaths. Mana rolling off her skin, Nebra grabbed his hand and sprinted down the hall. He staggered after her, and when the hall split, they tried to go different ways. Nebra yanked him after her, nearly taking him off his feet.

A voice, cool as water, echoed from the walls around them. “You’re going the wrong way.”

“Nebra!” Solid gasped. “She wants-”

“We’re not leaving without Noelle!” She wove through the shifting halls, mentally scrambling to keep track of where they were. If the corridors kept their layout, they would circle back to the hall that Noelle and Young Nozel went down. It would only be a few more turns before they came back to where they started, and then they could get Noelle and get out.

A steel spear shot through the mist, moving so fast that they never saw it coming. It slammed into Nebra’s shoulder, impaling her against the wall. She shrieked, the sound shaking the air until the mist thinned to terrified whisps. Planting her hands on the blood-splattered wall, she struggled to pull herself free. But the spear was buried solidly in the wall, and its long handle extended several feet through her back. She was pinned.

Solid leapt in front of her, his face pale and clammy and his legs trembling. His muddy grimoire flipped open, the damp pages slipping past one another with a bogged down slowness. He searched wildly through the fading mist for a target, but the hallways had gone dark. When the voice reached him, clear as a bell through the walls, he startled so badly he almost lost his footing.

“Huh. I missed.” 

Acier glided out of the dark, suspended above the shifting floor in her valkyrie armor. She curled her fingers to her lip, eyeing Nebra with a puzzled frown. “Noelle was a bigger problem than I anticipated.”

“Please stop, Mother!” Solid readied another water bullet, his hand shaking as he raised it to aim the spell. It rocketed toward the woman, the recoil making him stagger.

Acier deflected it with a swing of her lance. It careened into the wall, boring a hole through it and disappearing into the chasm on the other side. “You can still leave, Solid. You don’t have to die with your sister.”

His grimoire pages sluggishly flipped to a new spell. Death Dealing Sea Serpent wove toward her. The snake’s fangs met her lance. It struggled against it, body writhing in the air behind it. Acier gripped the lance with both hands, and in a wide arc, she brought it over her head, and then slammed it to the floor. The serpent disintegrated in a splash, soaking the siblings. Shaking the water off her lance, Acier advanced on them.

Solid pressed his back to the wall, an arm curled around his ribcage. Panting, he looked to Nebra, who was still struggling to pull the spear from the wall with blood-stained hands.

Acier set the tip of her lance to rest on Solid’s clavicle, taking careful aim. The look on her face was serious and grim. “Let’s hope I don’t miss this time. I don’t like hurting my babies. But this is for the greater good.”

She brought the lance down on him, forcing the sharp tip to the floor. The tile shattered, cracks serpentining across the shifting floor. A violent rip tore through the air. Nebra buried her face in her hands, her mouth open in a silent scream. Solid collapsed to the ground.

Acier adjusted her grip on her lance and yanked it out of the cracked floor tiles. She examined the tip of her weapon. Her lips curled into a perturbed frown. “Well. That’s interesting.”

From the broken floor Solid stared up at her, his ashen mouth agape and his chest heaving. His shirt, split down the middle, hung around his shoulders, and a fine red line ran from his sternum to his belly button.

The steel princess sighed and turned, putting her back to the fallen siblings. “Alright, Nozel. You’ve made your point. Let’s discuss what needs to happen next.”

At the end of the dark hallway stood Noelle and Nozel; the latter now fully grown, the former adorned in her valkyrie dress. Mercury shined around Nozel’s feet. He leveled a venomous stare at the steel-clad woman. “Let them go.”

“I was never holding them hostage, dear.” With a flick of her wrist, the steel spear pinning Nebra to the wall vanished. Nebra collapsed to the floor, gripping her bleeding shoulder. Solid struggled with the layers of his clothes until he managed to rip off a rag, and he pressed it to the wound.

“Let them leave. Then you and I will talk,” Nozel snarled.

Acier curled her fingers to her mouth, her perturbed frown returning. “So you haven’t figured out what is happening… I want them to leave, Nozel. Please, show them out, and I will not lay a finger on them. The only reason I’m fighting them at all is because they’ve refused to go.”

Nozel’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He looked to Solid and Nebra.

“We’re not leaving without you and Noelle!” Nebra cried.

“Of course, I want Noelle to go, too,” Acier added. “The only one who should be here is you. This is  _ your _ world. Look at what a mess they’ve made of it.” She gestured to the warped, distorted halls. “But I can fix this once they go, if you let me. I’ll turn it back to exactly what you want.”

“I’m not leaving!” Noelle cried. “We’re staying by your side, big brother!”

Nozel’s amethyst eyes slid to her, and then past Acier, where Solid and Nebra were watching them like he was the center of the entire world. Then they trailed to the distorted corridor, the uneven lighting. With a sigh, they came to rest on his mother again. “I want my siblings to come and go as they please.”

“That’s not how this works. Your world is falling apart because they’re here. It’s not meant to sustain this many people at once.” Her frown deepened, turning plaintive. “Show them out, Nozel. You have siblings here. And they don’t cause nearly as much trouble as these three.”

Nozel’s lip curled. His mercury took the form of swords , rotating around him in a slow arc. Two shot from the rotation, sending Acier dancing to avoid them. They slammed into the high ceiling, sending dust and plaster falling to the floor.

“You’re not even trying,” Acier observed. “Do you think that because I can’t kill these two, I won’t put up a fight? You influence what happens here. But you don’t control me.” She lunged, buffeting Solid and Nebra with the shockwave of her mana. Nozel’s mercury jumped to his defence, but a moment too late, he realized that he wasn’t her target. 

Acier’s and Noelle’s lances collided with a thunderous clatter. Noelle was pushed back, but she stood her ground, holding the steel princess at bay. As mercury leapt to surround them, Noelle leapt away and circled around. Mercury swallowed Acier’s lance, but she narrowly dodged it. When she whirled around to meet Noelle, she lost her grip on it. 

Noelle descended upon her. She blocked with her arms, and Noelle’s lance glanced off her wrist cuffs. In the instant that the girl needed to draw back, Acier caught her by the arm and flung her down the hall. Noelle, caught in a violent vortex of mana, was sent flying like a bird in a twister. She slammed against the wall above her siblings and sank to the floor. Solid and Nebra did their best to cushion her fall.

Acier darted up, narrowly escaping Nozel’s mercury as it snapped shut like a trap. She dove at him, a narrow silver spear forming in her hand. Nozel darted out of the way, a shield of mercury sending Acier and her spear ricocheting into the darkness of the hall. 

By the time she launched herself at him again, Noelle was there to meet her. The two collided mid-air, Noelle’s water lance between them. In a violent tangle they danced through the air, clashing with weapons of water and steel. The ceilings rose high; the walls bowed and buckled, sending them careening when they met them and falling away where they anticipated them. Nozel, mounting a mercury disk, followed after them, liquid metal moving like an octopus’ arms to try to snatch Acier out of the air. But she was faster than both of them, and when she finally got out from under Noelle’s lance, she sent her hurtling toward the floor. Mercury rose to cushion her fall. Noelle laid, stunned, on the floor of the hall.

Acier’s laugh rumbled through the walls. “You are a good son, Nozel. You’ve elevated me to a god in your mind.” The air grew thick and sharp as her mana permeated the hall, stronger and more bountiful than ever. A new steel lance formed in her hand. “I don’t understand why you would rather fight than talk. You know in your heart that you can’t beat me. Are you buying your siblings time? Then tell them to go! I’ll let them; now that you recognize them, I can’t hurt them unless you wish me to, and I don’t take any pleasure in it. Show them out. I’ll wait right here while you do.”

Nozel grit his teeth. He spared a swift glance to Noelle, who was pushing herself to her feet. She looked up to him with a determined stare; encouraging, demanding that he fight on. 

Swords lunged at Acier from every direction, but she sent them careening toward the walls and floor, each ricocheting off her lance without leaving a scratch. They liquified before they hit the walls, returning to globs of metal before evaporating.

“Is this really how you want this to go?” she asked. “You’re wasting all of our time.”

Nozel’s gaze turned icy as he flipped through pages in his grimoire. ”Noelle, get behind me.”

Eyebrows raising, she darted toward her siblings. She took a defensive stance in front of them and behind Nozel.

Acier’s eyes shined with interest. Nozel’s magic power permeated the air. She tilted her head up, and was met with a cloud of liquid mercury, perched high against the titanic ceiling. Fat droplets fell from the mass, gaining speed as they plummeted. The first struck Acier’s arm with a resounding metallic clang, throwing her off-kilter in time for another to strike her in the head. She backpedaled, scrambling to get out from under the cloud, but it followed her. Mercury droplets rapidly consumed her slender form, which coated her skin and hung off her armor. Those that did not find their target struck the ground like meteorites. The tile cracked and chipped, and the floor shined with liquid mercury.

“Yes!” Noelle cried. “Get her, Nozel!”

Acier collapsed under the weight of the liquid metal; forced to her knees on the floor, and then eventually laid out. But the barrage continued until there was no cloud left to rain down on her. Her form writhed under the shining mass of mercury.

“Yes!” Noelle cheered, pumping her fists in the air. “You did it!”

Nozel put his hand up, silencing her. The metal hardened; the air crisped with the chill that came with solid mercury, and its shimmering surface went still.

“Is that it?” Nebra breathed.

The hall’s ceiling fell, reaching its normal height. With an odd crackle, the floor became level again.

“Nozel,” Solid gasped, “where is the magic artifact?”

He frowned at him over his shoulder. “It’s-”

The mercury exploded. It pounded dents in the walls and cracked the floors. Sea Dragon’s Lair surrounded Noelle, Solid, and Nebra while Nozel rushed to get control of the metal. It gathered around his feet, widening his platform. The four stared, a feeling of dread creeping into their blood, as Acier rose from the floor.

“Wow, that is an amazing spell!” The pressure of her magic was paralytic; boundless, and pushed so densely that it acted as a forcefield around her. Her feet lifted off the ground, leaving her airborne again. “I’m sorry, Nozel. I know that you wanted that to work. But you also wanted to see me survive it.”

The walls ached and bowed like the castle was about to come down on top of them. Nozel’s hands curled into fists, the veins bulging against his knuckles. The light dimmed to an eerie brown, casting long twisted shadows.

“You can’t use Silver Star of Execution in here; not enough space,” she mused, bouncing the narrow end of her lance against her palm. “Rest assured that it wouldn’t work on me either. I’ve been patient, dear, but we really are in a predicament. If they don’t leave, this entire place will come down on all of our heads. Tell them to go, and they’ll be fine. You’ll be fine, too.”

Nozel’s brow furrowed. He looked back at his siblings, gaze hard, undecided.

“We’re not leaving you here,” Nebra quaked. Solid fixed him with a belligerent glare and nodded.

Noelle, nodded, too, her eyes alight with conviction. “We all go or none of us go.”

Acier let out a long sigh. Her voice was tight; the controlled monotone of a mother getting tired of repeating herself. “Nozel, tell them that you don’t want to leave. You wanted to be here, before they came and reminded you of some terrible things, didn’t you?”

Nozel’s shoulders went rigid.

“You got one wish when you found that crystal ball, and it was to have me back. Now, I’m here. And we both know that you don’t want me to go anywhere. You got your wish, and now you have an obligation to the place that wish created. I can’t leave. And if you do, everything inside this castle dies. Again.”

He stared at her, his nails digging into his palms. The mercury below his feet swirled erratically, its surface rough and rippling.

“They are killing this place, Nozel. If they don’t go soon, none of us get a choice.”

Dread crept into his pale face, the words sinking in like poison through the skin. He relinquished; the rules of this place were staring him in the face. He looked again at his siblings, pleading, desperate, unwilling to let this place swallow them whole. Solid and Nebra gazed back, understanding instantly the fear he was facing. 

Noelle, recognizing the silent conversation happening between them, bristled.

Nebra pushed herself to her feet, her teeth grit in pain. “Noelle, we have to go.”

She looked over her shoulder, eyes wide. “What? No!”

“Yes,” Nebra said, her voice firm. “Nozel needs us to leave. We’re leaving.”

“We can’t leave! Look at this place!” She threw up her hands, waving her lance in the air. “He can’t get out of here on his own!”

“You heard what she said,” Solid rasped.

“I don’t care what she said! We went through all this to save Nozel! We can’t give up now!”

Nebra and Solid fixed her with a tired, frustrated look. Solid struggled to speak through a broken ribcage. “Mother-”

“That’s not Mother!”

Nozel flinched. Solid and Nebra’s eyes went wide.

“You’re all forgetting that that’s not Mother!” Noelle pointed her lance at the steel-clad specter. “She tried to kill you! She attacked me! She’s fighting Nozel! She wants him here so she can eat him, or kill him, or, I don’t know! Do something bad! She looks and sounds and feels like Mother, but that’s not Mother! Just because you made a wish doesn’t mean that she’s real!” She stomped her foot and threw her head back, forcing her voice as loud as it would go. “Because Mother is dead! Mother is  _ never coming back!” _

A rumble worked its way up from the floor of the castle like a shockwave, growing more violent as it went. The floor threw Solid and Nebra to their knees. The walls shook and buckled, thundering as they fell away from their frames. The ceilings soared until they were so high that they faded into blackness. Bloody red light replaced the brown in flashes.

“Noelle!” Acier’s voice boomed over the cacophony, high-pitched and frantic. “Don’t say such things!”

“It’s true!” She couldn’t make her voice resonate in the walls, but she screamed until she was hoarse. “Mother is dead! That thing is not real! She can’t replace her! This place is fake and it’s messing with our minds and we need to get out of here!”

The ceiling fissured and crumbled, hurdling boulders out of the darkness. Noelle, Solid, and Nebra cowered; Noelle pushed her shield to thicken, protecting them from the falling debris. Nozel wove among the rubble, fading in and out of the blackness that was now rapidly consuming the hall. Acier ducked and dodged, sinking deeper into it each moment.

“She’s not real, Nozel!” Noelle’s voice barely rose above the sound of crashing rubble, but she kept screaming. “You can kill her and it won’t matter! Then we can all leave together!”

Mercury leapt from Nozel’s reserves, forming bullets that bore into the steel princess’s armor. Her lightning-fast reflexes and mana forcefield were gone. She was thrown to the floor under a barrage of mercury. Stunned, she only barely managed to roll out from under a falling chunk of the ceiling. The momentum carried her to her feet, and she leapt into the air again.

“Don’t listen to her, Nozel! I am as real as you want me to be,” she intoned, her voice echoing through the dying walls. “Don’t you want to stay here? Do you really want to go back to a world where I’m gone?”

Mercury snaked through the air, dodging the falling rubble with pinpoint turns and shifts. Face paling, Acier darted from it, shooting through the cascade of stone and plaster like a rabbit from a fox. The ceiling was giving way to a nebulous void, deep and twisting with deathly colors that seemed eternally far, and yet rapidly approaching.

“We have to find that artifact.” Clinging to what remained of the wall, Nebra pushed herself to her feet. “It’ll end this illusion.”

“We don’t know where it is!” Solid gasped.

“I do.” Noelle stepped up to her brother and held out her hand. “Give me the chest.”

Nebra and Solid stared at her like she’d spoken another language. But Solid pulled the chest from behind him, where he’d hidden it when Noelle had dropped it into his lap among the fight. He eyed it bemusedly before offering it to her. “Where do we have to go?”

She tucked the chest under her arm and turned toward the fight. “We don’t have to go anywhere.”

The walls were rapidly narrowing and falling. Nozel pursued Acier down the corridor as they fell towards each other, forming a peak that blocked off the vanishing ceiling. Debris still plunged from above, ignoring the tilted walls in their way. Frantic, Acier spun around to fire a broad, spinning spear at him. Nozel deflected it with ease, and the distance between them shortened.

“Think about this!” Acier screamed. “If you let this fall, I’ll be gone forever! Is that what you want? You had everything here!”

The walls, giving in to their own weight, buckled. Everything solid around them was coming apart, and the two were rapidly running out of places to fly. Nozel’s mercury latched onto Acier, dragging her out from under a slab of falling wall. He flung her toward his siblings, now only specks of color in the distance. “Nebra! Spider Binding Thread!”

She jumped to attention, forgetting her wound. But even as it made her cringe, her grimoire flipped open. The corridor filled with mist, and as she sailed into it, Acier was ensnared.

“Nebra Silva!” Her voice shook the floor, threatening to throw them to their knees. “Let go of me at once!”

Nebra cringed like she’d been stabbed again, but Noelle didn’t give her a chance to back down. “She’s not real,” she chanted, poised to strike like a stalking cat. “She’s not real.”

A titanic slab of stone crashed down on Noelle’s protective spell, splitting in half and falling to either side of it. The entire hallway was falling away, and the nothingness on the other side of the walls closed in. Nozel raced back down the hall towards his siblings as the spiraling darkness behind him ate away at what remained of the hall. “Noelle! Do it now!”

She shot from the lair with a mana-powered leap. Her magic blew through everything in her path. Eye to eye with the mother she had never met, all she could see in her face was despair.

She opened the chest.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The spell is broken.

> _Noelle, I need to ask you something. Back in the castle, you said that you didn’t have any good memories of us. Is that true? ...Noelle?_
> 
> _I’m sorry, big brother, I never should have said that. I wouldn’t have ever mentioned it if I knew-_
> 
> _No. It was something that I needed to hear._

When the sun rose in the Clover Kingdom on a warm spring day, dozens across the map awoke knowing two very important things: First, that there was a third royal family alongside the Vermillions and the Kiras. And second, that the four members of that family had vanished days ago without a trace.

A handful of magic knights spanning five squads mobilized of their own volition, following orders that they suddenly recalled being given to them on a mission they’d abandoned. Wizard King Julius and Marx Francois scrambled to lead the remembered mission in the dungeon ruins, and Yami Sukehiro and Fuegoleon Vermillion showed up as the search commenced, the latter desperate to make up for a wrong he’d committed and the former furious that one of his people had been snatched out of his own lair. Dorothy Unsworth, travelling in her sleep, was one of the first ones there. The castle ruins at which they arrived were flattened; not a single wall still stood, and the rubble had long since settled. They had far more manpower than they needed for the recovery mission, but nobody would leave until the mission was complete.

> _Nozel says that you kept stopping Solid to look for me._
> 
> _...Well, of course I did. You didn’t really think that I’d leave you in there, did you?_
> 
> _I guess I kind of figured that you’d let me fend for myself._
> 
> _No. We may not have always gotten along, but you are my little sister. I never would have left you behind._

Within an hour the search party found what it was looking for: The four Silva siblings unconscious together among the rubble. And pressed to Noelle’s chest, her arms wrapped tightly around it, was a magic sealing chest.

The condition of the siblings was serious. Nebra had a puncture wound to her shoulder, a hole that went straight through. While it had not hit anything vital, it was filthy from the rubble, and ran a high risk of infection. Her wrists and ankles were torn and bleeding, and their grime-laden state made them a similar risk. Solid had two cracked ribs, and two more that were broken. Noelle was badly bruised, but she’d not suffered from any broken skin; a slight concussion was her worst injury. All of them were dangerously dehydrated and weak with hunger. But Nozel was in the worst shape by far. He was starving, dehydrated, anemic, and bruised. His mana was dangerously low, and in the coming days, slow to recover.

> _So, what was it like, before we showed up?_
> 
> _What do you mean?_
> 
> _You know exactly what I’m talking about. That thing… She acted like Mother, before she decided to kill us. It must have been wonderful until we ruined it._
> 
> _...It was nice. But she never acted exactly like Mother._
> 
> _Really?_
> 
> _She was only the best parts of Mother. She didn’t have her temper. She wasn’t condescending like Mother was. And she knew how to hold a baby._
> 
> _Sounds ideal._
> 
> _It was, in the moment. But now, looking back, she seems more like a parody._

The Silvas were taken home and cared for by the most accomplished medics in the kingdom. While they recovered, the Department of Magic attempted to research the magic item that they had recovered. But there was no record of anything like a crystal ball that stole memories in their archive. They were forced to resort to the reports of those affected by it to create a new entry in their database; almost all of which were anecdotal. The Silvas themselves were reluctant to discuss what had happened to them in the week that they’d gone missing, offering only minute details and chilly responses. And nearly losing an entire royal family left those in charge of the project reluctant to push their luck, so it was given the mark of highest danger level and locked away in the Clover Vault; a place that, with enough time, was sure to become a dungeon of its own.

> _Hey, Noelle, about that time that I trapped you in my magic until you, uh…_
> 
> _What about it?_
> 
> _I’m… I’m sorry about that._
> 
> _It’s okay, Solid. I forgive you._

The House of Silva was flooded with letters and gifts of condolence and penitence. All of the kingdom was processing that they’d nearly let their royals die of neglect in a dungeon, and many of the magic knights who had been called to action by Solid and Nebra took the state the Silvas were found in personally. But with each passing day back in the real world, a dissonance settled more soundly over siblings that made the events at the fake castle feel like a lucid dream, and they could regard it with a clarity of mind and amusement; a luxury that their rescuers would never have. 

Nebra, Solid, and Noelle, who recovered long before their eldest brother, sifted through the gifts and letters with a sense of morbid fascination, unable to reconcile how barely an afternoon in that imagined place could add up to over a week wasting away in the real world. At least they had enough treats and flowers to last them through the spring. The air of House Silva was as sweet and colorful as their diets in the coming weeks.

> _She wasn’t anything like the painting, not really. Even when she was nice to us. Her eyes weren’t the right shape, and she was too short._
> 
> _Too short?_
> 
> _Yes! She was taller, the way I remember her. And her face was softer, like in the painting._
> 
> _That’s how you remember her, huh?_
> 
> _...What do you mean?_
> 
> _Nothing. What did you remember of me? Nebra says that you forgot my face before you entered the castle._
> 
> _She told you that? I didn’t mean to. I tried not to!_
> 
> _I know, Solid. It wasn’t an accusation. Now answer my question._
> 
> _...I never forgot the sound of your voice. And I missed you a lot. That’s got to be what stuck the most. That I missed you._

Noelle stayed at House Silva until Nozel’s condition stabilized. It was the longest span of time she’d spent at home since she’d become a black bull. And while she missed her black bull family, and looked forward to getting back to them, when Nozel was officially declared to be on the road to good health, she was surprised to find that she wasn’t eager to leave. Around that same time, it dawned on her that her siblings weren’t in a rush to be rid of her, either.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their near-fatal encounter with the magic artifact weeks behind them, the Silva siblings build their future.

Noelle rushed down a long pearly hall that wove through House Silva. Upon arriving at her destination, she skidded to a stop, her shoes slipping against the tile. Face twisting in a grimace, she straightened and stepped through the doorway. “I’m here!” She fussed with her top and smoothed her skirt. “I’m late! I’m sorry! Finral was busy with...”

The room was generously lit by two open windows, which flooded the room with warm late-morning light. The tea table, chairs, and divan had been moved to the walls, and were replaced by a lone padded chair, decorated with velvet and studded with semi-precious stones. In front of it, an easel with a covered canvas sat. Several standup lights sat near the windows, turned off. Nebra, sitting in the chair at the center of the room, smirked at her. “Relax. Everyone is running late. You’re fine.”

Solid, who was leaning against the back of the chair, cocked a brow. “Did you run here? You really have lost your manners in that den you call a squad base.”

Noelle lifted her chin and pouted at him, her cheeks darkening. “I have not. I was trying to be considerate. Anyway,  _ I _ am not the reason I’m late.” She set a paper box on a table near the door and crossed the room to lean against the chair with her siblings. “Why is everybody else running late?”

Nebra sighed as if being made to wait was more than she could bear. “Nozel is finishing up some things in his office, and Aurelius does what he wants, I guess.”

“Oh.” Noelle pursed her lips and considered the box that she’d left on the table. “Maybe if we have to wait a while…”

“You won’t.” Nozel stepped into the room, smoothing the fabric of his deep blue button-down. “I passed Aurelius on my way. He’ll be here in a moment.”

Noelle smiled. It had been a couple weeks since she’d last seen her eldest brother, so it was still such a delight to see his health improving with each visit. His cheeks, sunken and ashen after he’d been rescued from the ruins, were now nearly back to their normal fullness. His skin had finally and completely regained its healthy sheen. There was no sign of the sickly dullness that had darkened his eyes for so long. “Good to see you, big brother.”

As he passed her, his hand rested on the top of her head for just a moment, and Noelle’s smile bloomed into a toothy grin. He didn’t let the gesture slow him in his approach, however, and he came to a stop in front of Nebra. “You’re in my chair.”

“It’s not your chair until Aurelius gets here,” Nebra protested.

“Ah, so we’re not going to circle back to what’s in the box?” Solid jabbed a finger at Noelle’s box, eyebrows raised.

Nebra and Nozel followed his gaze, but theirs didn’t linger long on the box, because Aurelius Glissando Poutine walked into the room. The tall, stately man strolled to the easel without acknowledging that he was fashionably late. He set down his briefcase and pulled aside the tarp covering his canvas. Wordlessly, he began to mix his pigments.

“No greeting, Aurelius?” Nebra chided.

“No, my lady. We all know each other. We know why we’re here. Why not get directly to work? I can finish today if we are not bogged down by pleasantries, hmm?”

The siblings exchanged a peeved look. No one else in the court could speak to the royal family that way. But then again, no one else in the court could be trusted with the task laid out for Aurelius Glissando Poutine.

They shifted into position before they needed to be told; Nozel taking Nebra’s place in the chair and crossing his hands in his lap, while Nebra, Solid, and Noelle positioned themselves behind his chair. They straightened their formal clothes and smoothed their hair while the painter prepared his pallet.

Naturally, their preparations did not satisfy Aurelius. When he had his paints prepared, he pointed with his paintbrush and listed off orders. “Lord Nozel, turn a hair to the left. Lady Noelle, smooth your hair along your shoulder and take a step closer to Lord Solid. Lady Nebra, move a step to the right-- no, too much, take half a step back. Lord Solid, bring your fingers closer together-- not those ones, the last two.” His adjustments went on until the siblings were positioned exactly how he wanted them, and then he settled into satisfied silence while he painted.

The minutes ticked by. Noelle, the only one with the luxury of hidden hands, played with the fabric of her skirt. Solid’s mouth opened unsettlingly wide in a bored yawn. Nebra twitched when she could feel the air shifting around the room on her eyelashes. Nozel remained unaffected by the passing time, his pose as still as a porcelain statue.

When the boredom in the air was palpable, He broke the silence with a casual, “Guess who brought me another apology gift today.”

Nebra, Solid and Noelle turned to him, their lips curving into a scandalized O. When Aurelius cleared his throat, their heads snapped back to their proper positions, but their eyes craned toward their elder brother, eager for a story about their favorite penitent fire mage.

“Wild-caught honey maple smoked salmon,” he said airily.

“Oooh,” his siblings gasped.

“Was it good?” Nebra asked.

“It was amazing.”

“Will you share?” Solid asked.

“No.”

Nebra and Noelle giggled, earning them a glare from Aurelius.

“Do you know what he said when he gave it to me?”

Nebra bit her lip. Noelle broke into a grin. Solid looked like he sincerely didn’t know if he wanted to know.

“‘I’m sure that they’re feeding you enough, but you still look thin.’” His deep-voiced, serious lilt was such a faithful imitation that Nebra and Noelle couldn’t help but giggle. “‘I brought you this as a precautionary measure. It should fatten you up.’”

Despite his reluctance to lean into the gossip, Solid couldn’t help but snicker with his sisters.

“Does he expect you to fluff up like a whipped egg? You’re nearly back to normal,” Nebra giggled.

“He’s just looking out for me,” Nozel said, his voice low and humble to the point of parody.

Solid let out an ugly snort that sent his sisters chortling. Nozel’s stoic deadpan cracked into a smile.

Aurelius’ throat clear burst into an angry cough. He leaned around the easel, fixing them with a glare that chastised them back into a struggled silence. Their giggles were effectively smothered.

“Is that why you were late?” Noelle asked.

“He left quickly enough,” Nozel replied. “But I did eat the salmon before I left.”

“All of it?” Nebra gawked.

“Why?” Solid guffawed. “We were waiting.”

“If there was any trace of it tomorrow, Nebra would have sniffed it out like a bloodhound.”

Solid and Noelle burst into laughter. Nebra’s cheeks colored, her brow twitching in offense. Aurelius’ cranky glare was starting to look homicidal.

“I don’t know why  _ you _ get all gifts from him,” Solid sighed, hurrying to return to his portrait posture. “All I got was a measly apology. He practically ditched me! Where’s my salmon?”

“I bet he’d let you punch him again if you asked,” Nebra offered.

Nozel did a double take without moving his head. “ _ Again?” _

“Ah, yeah.” Solid grinned, eyes shining wistfully. “I’ve got to ask him.”

Aurelius was, to a magnificent degree, a master of his craft. No one else could have performed with such a short temper and dynamical models. In the late afternoon, he set down his brush and threw up his hands. “It is complete!”

The Silva siblings’ heads swiveled toward him like they were drawn by a magnet. Nozel rose, but his siblings beat him to the canvas, crowding around the exasperated artist to take in the fruits of his labor. Nebra, Solid, and Noelle’s eyes softened. Their silence was almost enough to make Nozel worry, until he joined them and saw it for himself.

There they were, Nozel sitting regally in the expensively upholstered chair, with Noelle on his left, Nebra on his right, and Solid directly behind him. The shading and colors the artist had chosen for their skin gave them a dignified yet youthful glow, and their faces were soft with smiles unique to each of them, yet so similar. Despite the painting being started weeks ago-- before the siblings had fully healed --not a single hint of injury touched any of them; no raw, rosy wrists for Nebra, no bruises for Solid and Noelle, no hollow cheeks and sunken eyes for Nozel. In the painting’s image they were perfectly pristine, frozen in a sanguine moment in time.

“We’re all smiling,” Nozel noted, his eyebrows raising in surprise.

“Of course you are!” Aurelius huffed. “You were smiling the entire time you sat for me!”

Unanimously satisfied with their portrait, the Silvas decided to have dinner. They ate in relative quiet, occasionally broken up by a comment or quip. Enjoying their comfortable silence, their meal carried into the night. 

When the lateness of the hour dawned on him, Nozel turned to his youngest sister. “Are you going to spend the night?”

She glanced at the clock on the wall, and seeing the time, pursed her lips. “Yeah, I guess I will. I’m leaving for a mission tomorrow, but I can fly back in the morning.”

Nozel’s expression hardened in a look of concern, but Solid interjected before he could protest. “Hey, you never told us what’s in your box!”

“Oh! This?” Noelle picked it out of the empty chair beside her, where she’d placed it while she ate. She opened it up and fished out the contents. “Charmy and Vanessa taught me how to make lollipops! I brought one for each of us.”

Her siblings eyed the translucent, colorful candies with poorly masked curiosity. Noelle almost always brought treats when she came home; a perk of living with a woman with a bottomless stomach, endless supplies, and a charitable nature. It had taken a lot of insistence for them to give food made by a commoner in a filthy castle a try, but now they couldn’t deny that the sweet treats were always as good as they looked. When Noelle held them out, they plucked up the lollis in a violent and refined game of first-come-first-serve. They eagerly tore the paper off and stuck them in their mouths. Noelle sat back with the remaining lollipop, smiling triumphantly.

Once they’d gotten them in their mouths, however, they didn’t seem to know what to do with them. Noelle watched, fascinated, as her siblings’ eyes shifted around the table, their lips clenched tightly around the stick. Feeling the responsibility rest on him, Nozel pinched his thumb and pointer finger around the handle and pulled the round yellow candy out of his mouth. It separated from his lips with a  _ pop _ , and he put his fingers to his mouth, embarrassed. “There is no dignified way to eat a lollipop.”

The room dissolved into relieved chuckles. Now that the expectation for some sort of etiquette was demonstratively abandoned, they sucked on their lollipops however they saw fit. It didn’t take them long to whittle them away, and one by one, they set their sticks on their napkins. Servants scooped them out from under them with the rest of their dishes.

“When will the painting go up?” Noelle asked, steepling her fingers and leaning her chin on them.

“When Aurelius says it’s dry,” Nozel replied. “A day or two.”

“The frame is already picked out, I take it?” Nebra guessed.

“Yes.”

“Aah! I can’t wait to see it on the wall!” Noelle trilled. Her smile thinned a little. “But… I guess I don’t have much reason to come here, now that our portrait is done.”

Nebra, Solid, and Nozel frowned. They exchanged awkward looks as the realization dawned: their obligation to meet had ended. Nebra curled her finger to her lip, her brow furrowing. Nozel frowned at the table. Solid crossed his arms and sat back.

When the silence became definitive, Noelle sank into her seat, forgetting for a moment to hide her disappointment. She corrected herself immediately, straightening and flicking her wrist. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll finally get some things done at the black bulls base! They’re a mess without me.”

“Naturally,” Nebra agreed, half-hearted.

“I don’t know how half of them tie their shoes in the morning! It’s really a shame that they don’t know better. I have to keep them from blowing each other’s heads off half the time. Last time, when I came back from here, Magna had set Luck’s back on fire, and Luck didn’t even try to put out the flames. He thought that me dousing him in water was an invitation to fight!”

“Hmm,” Nozel murmured, more convincingly faking concern.

“And Asta-- idiot! --gets lost constantly. The castle layout changes all the time, but that’s no reason to not know where you’re going! He’d probably never find his way out if I wasn’t there to lead him.”

“Pathetic,” Solid said, lips curving into an authentic scowl. “You must have more stories than you could fit in a day.” 

“Yeah!” she said, throwing up her hands. “They’re all ridiculous! You wouldn’t believe what goes on there, especially when I’m not around.”

“You should tell us.”

Noelle stammered to a stop, thrown by the comment. “Huh?”

“If it’s as bad as you say, we should know about it.” Solid looked to Nozel. His lips curved into a conspiratorial smile. “It’s the superior squads’ responsibility to know what happens in the inferior squads, in case they need correction.”

Nozel’s eyes lit up like a struck match. He crossed his hands on the table and nodded very seriously. “Solid is right. You should report to us the goings-on of your squad regularly. For quality control.”

Nebra, catching on, feigned concern. “Noelle! If they are doing  _ anything _ that would disrespect the title of Magic Knight, we should hear about it. Regularly.”

“Oh…” Noelle’s eyes trailed to the table. When she looked back up, she was smiling. “Okay. I can give reports. How often would you like them…?”

The siblings exchanged a thoughtful look. “Monthly?” Nozel offered.

“Unless, of course, something can’t wait,” Nebra added.

“Obviously,” Solid scoffed.

Her smile stretched into a grin. “Okay. Then I’ll come by at least once a month with a report, if that’s what you want.”

“Yes.” Nozel nodded, his eyes shining. “That is what we want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end. I know I left a few loose ends, and I hope you're not too disappointed. Obviously, there is more that I could have done with this concept, but I wanted to keep it short and sweet (and also I ran out of ideas). It was always about getting to a point where these four could plausibly feel like a family again, and although I don't think I did it perfectly, I do think that I did it better than canon did (at least up to the Spade arc).
> 
> Thank you everyone for your comments. When I started posting this story, I really didn't think that it would get much attention; it's SO different from the corny shit I usually post (which I will get back to, so if you came for that, don't worry!) and I didn't know if there would be an audience for it. Reading all of your comments every day instilled me with so much joy and excitement. I looked forward to reading them every day, and they'd put a smile on my face that I just couldn't shake. Thank you for analyzing, anticipating, and just plain screaming in the comments. I really can't thank you enough! I hope I can one day write something else that strikes a cord as much as this seemed to!
> 
> If you're interested in keeping up with my ramblings about Black Clover, please come scream with me on tumblr! I write and I draw and I meme at @thespiralgrimoire. There is plenty more to see in my art tag and I love getting asks and replies!
> 
> ...I could keep rambling, but I won't. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading. I hope to holler about Silvas with you again soon!


End file.
